
Studio B Sessions
Studio B Sessions is a weekly live-streamed podcast hosted by Vipul Bindra, Founder of Bindra Productions. Recorded at Studio B, this unscripted two-hour show features candid conversations with industry-leading guests from the video production and business world. Dive deep into the art of filmmaking, business strategies, client acquisition, and the latest in camera technology. Perfect for video professionals, entrepreneurs, and anyone passionate about the intersection of creativity and business.
Studio B Sessions
From Zero to Dream Studio: How to Build a Thriving Video Business
In this exciting episode of Studio B Sessions, we dive into the journey of building a professional video studio from scratch! Join us as we sit down with Emmanuel Gallegos, founder of Eman Films, who turned his vision of a dream studio into a thriving creative hub for video production.
Emmanuel shares his step-by-step process for starting and growing a successful video studio, from choosing the right location and equipment to securing clients and building a talented team. He also reveals the challenges he faced along the way and how he overcame them to create a sustainable and profitable business.
Whether you're a video professional dreaming of starting your own studio or an entrepreneur eager to break into the production space, this episode is packed with actionable advice, insider tips, and inspiration to help you turn your ideas into reality.
Don’t miss this in-depth, unscripted conversation that’s perfect for anyone looking to take the next step in the video production industry!
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (OR wherever you listen to your podcasts!): https://www.studiobsessions.com
Learn more about Bindra Productions: https://bindraproductions.com/
all right, Emmanuel welcome.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Thank you for coming, my friend. I know how busy you are, of course you were like one of the top people on the list. I felt bad because, uh, we always have a great uh schedule and then I'm over here telling you I'm gonna be late.
Vipul Bindra:I made it, I made it. I know a little bit late, but I was able to make it well, I'm glad you're here, um, you know, and so to all the new listeners and the reason, and you know, we've been talking about this for for years now.
Vipul Bindra:at this point, I wanted to start this podcast because, um, these are the conversations that I wish I could hear you know when I was starting up, because the the real truth is, over all these courses that are available online, you can learn so much from people in the industry or around the industry who are actually in it instead of, you know, just trying to sell a course. So you were one of the first people you know I wanted to have on here, because I think you have great insight, so thanks for coming.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Like I said, thank you for thinking about me.
Vipul Bindra:If not, you know, like I said, we'll jerk around for two hours, but hopefully people will learn something out of it. I mean, I don't know no-transcript, like you say, it's. It's. It's easier when we do it all together. Right, we learn from each other, because there's so many mistakes that I wouldn't have made had I known about it had somebody been there like, hey, don't do this or or this. At least I found was a waste of time. Yeah, so now that you know I love that. What about?
Emmanuel Gallegos:what we have is a community of creators, so so you can actually share ideas, you can bounce ideas, we have a group chat, we all talk, sometimes we even have sometimes we have movie nights too. When there's a good movie that comes out. Yeah, oppenheimer. Yeah, I remember that Dude, my eyes.
Vipul Bindra:we went to what IMAX. My eyes were like literally like that was so bright that knocked us out for sure. I was like am I going to have my vision?
Emmanuel Gallegos:left. We were pretty close to the screen. We were breaking our necks looking up there.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, that was definitely fun. But yeah, see, that's what I'm saying.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We have a, I think, great community at this point, but I want to ask you like what makes you want to do video, like why video it's always funny, because I feel like it slowly changes over the years, because I feel like I was. I don't know if other people get this, maybe it's like ADHD, maybe it's like some people have it, maybe they don't. But when I first started I got obsessed with wanting to do movies. So I had zero experience. I was in my last year of college and I was just a lifeguard and I had a. I bought a camera. I bought like I think I bought an m50 and I was like I want to make as many movies as I can. I want to do this. I know it's going to be a grind for a few years. I just want to make as many stories as I can.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So I found Facebook groups. I want, you know, talk to as much people as I could. I begged people to have me on their sets and I worked on like I think the first year I worked on 12 sets. Then the following year I worked on like 10 and then a little bit less and less, until you find out like, all right, like if I'm doing this full time, I want to make money. Let's let's figure out how I can make money and then you figure out, you know where your, where your city, you know what, what video your city does the most In Orlando. You know, I think I think weddings are really popular here in Orlando. I think real estate is really popular here in Orlando and in corporate are really popular here in Orlando.
Vipul Bindra:I think real estate is really popular here in Orlando and then corporate is really popular here in Orlando and conferences and conferences yeah, a lot of conferences.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I always call that corporate too, but I know that's kind of like a don't corporate event type of situation. So then it's like, okay, well, I'm not going to move to LA, it's in the middle of COVID. That's not a great plan. I'm not going to move to LA, it's in the middle of COVID, that's not a great plan. What do I want to do? What do I want to focus on? So I did video for a few years and just trying to figure out what's my niche. And then I slowly I think now in 2025, I'm more in the commercial space commercial and corporate space and I'm comfortable with that and I enjoy doing that type of work.
Vipul Bindra:And you know what I find interesting about it. I think you're the only person I know that does this. You're always shooting something, Whether you're getting paid or not.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You're shooting something.
Vipul Bindra:You're the only guy in that who's like oh, I'm shooting this for a client. Or hey, let's go film a commercial for a watch. Or let's go do something with the models or something. You're always shooting, which, basically, is what we all want to do.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So you're definitely passionate about it. Yeah, it's. It's always that thing of like. I have a one of my friends, fernando I. We always talk about this and he said there's one thing that I always think of when, like, I get frustrated. It's like if you want to do what pays the most it's not filmmaking you can do a bunch of things that you can get paid for a lot. Don't be wrong. In the top tier filmmaking and you know movies, you know top agency commercials you can make a lot, a lot of money. But you can make a lot more money doing like 20, 30% of other things. There's a lot of things that you can make a lot more money than than this, especially starting off.
Emmanuel Gallegos:A lot of the starting off is just making. It's just doing it for free or doing it on the side, but you're doing it because you like doing it, you like the process, you like getting a result, you like so doing it. You like the process, you like getting a result, you like so might as well do it. And if you keep doing it and you keep having fun, it's not going to feel like a chore, like, yeah, I want to make money, but I want to have fun and you don't always get the chance of having the funnest or, you know, the most fun time on a shoot. Sometimes it's like a talking head hey, it's fun, you know, making sure the lights are great, but then you have one setup and then you sit there for like three hours, four hours.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Or you have to do an event where it's just all like doctors talking about surgeries and you're just capturing that, but you're like, eh, I'm having fun because it looks great, but I'm not telling a story, which is how I started off with, with just wanting to tell a story. But everything has their own niches and then each niche has thing that you can get passionate about. And, yeah, just keep doing it every day. I do need to do it more often. I think the past three months it's just been family time and fixing up the studio and planning what's going to happen for 2025. But I was planning on doing a spec shoot, hopefully in the next month or so. Look at you.
Vipul Bindra:Talk about studio. By the way, you started a studio. What's the name of it? Again?
Emmanuel Gallegos:I own Studio 124. It's here near downtown Orlando, on East Colonial, and it's a 400 or 600 square foot photo and video studio. We have a side wall, paper backdrops, a bunch of different movable backdrops as well. Pitch mode Emmanuel.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, full pitch. If you guys need models, if you guys guys, hey, we don't peddle anything on this podcast, but okay, no, for real. I mean, it's a, it's a really nice space, I mean if somebody needs a space.
Vipul Bindra:I mean I see the use of it yeah what I find, what I want to know and I think I'm sure the people listening would want to know is the economics of it, because for years I wanted to build a studio right that, I think we've talked. I was like my dream would be build an office, maybe shared space, have a psych wall, maybe have this.
Vipul Bindra:And you're one of the crazy ones who went out and did it, but for me I could never make the numbers work, because most of my shoots are travel or on location, because corporate and commercial work 100%. What made you want to leap into it and how did you see the future ROI or how did you justify the financial of it?
Emmanuel Gallegos:So I talked to a lot of friends that own studios as well, because I was thinking about the same thing. I was like is this even something financial? Is this something where you can make money off of? And the straight answer is if this is your main source of income, then having a rental studio isn't going to be what pays the bills, your main source of income then having a rental studio isn't going to be what pays the bills. Especially in downtown Orlando there's well like in a 10, 15 mile radius there's like 20, 30 studios. So if you want your main revenue to be, hey, let's just rent out the space and just sit there and do nothing, you're not going to be making that much money in the long run.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But my main source of income is freelance DPing. And then I have a production company. I have Adapt Media with my friend Fernando and we do more commercials or corporate work. That's slightly larger I wouldn't say crazy large scale. It's more like on the middle budget, low budget for agencies or brands, and then my main thing is just getting hired out to go. Either I fly out, I do DP work, and then boom, I have the studio. Where I have the studio, people come, they rent it out. We have a pop-up photo shoots. We're actually doing a master class tomorrow. That's gonna be our first master class where we have somebody come in they do a session, and our goal wasn't necessarily to make oh, let's make a bunch of money. Our goal was like, hey, let's, let's have a creative space for us to be creative, kind of like how you said like, hey, I like to do fun shoots, just to do shoots. That was kind of like the basis of making that, and then I have two partners with it, which kind of helps us.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Hey, I'm not spending all the rent myself, I have two other people that help me with the rent, two of the people that use it and these other two other people are more photographer based and then they can use it because as videographers I get hired.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I go somewhere else. I don't go to like my own, you know, studio for shoots, because mostly it's someone's office outside a, uh, a conference center. So it's not it's not always, you know, it's not something that I've used for my specific work a lot, but it's a place where I use for, like, my meetings, uh, where I have my, my meetings with my two other co-workers, uh, and a place where I use for like my meetings, uh, where I have my, my meetings with my two other co-workers, uh, and then we just plan stuff for the student, just have people come into the studio, use the studio, have the space, have fun, and we're just. This is our first six months using it, so our goal is to see how it goes, grow it, see how we can. I guess, like we want to have like a little creative hub for people to come in and just do like their use, creativity with their photos, and then us help and just slowly create a little community around. You know video and photo that's incredible.
Vipul Bindra:No, I think that's smart move, because now you're splitting rent three ways, right, so the cost to go into it is a third. And then on top of that, uh, like you said, it's a, it's a space, right, it's your space, that's where you can be creative, you can have meetings. You're not doing that in your apartment, in your home, right?
Vipul Bindra:so it makes makes absolute sense to me I'm just, I'm just uh happy that you're the crazy enough person out of all of us to go and actually do it, to just throw money at something and see, and see if it sticks, yeah, and works, that we actually.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We had a, we had a meeting today and we're actually super excited about how we want to scale it. I think the first six months was all right. This is work and can we do it? We would have rented out a few times. We were able to have some pop-up photo shoots. We did a dog one, we did a Halloween one and we know it can work. And now the goal is all right. How can we implement it?
Emmanuel Gallegos:And about being, I would say, like a video, or a lot of people just call entrepreneur, entrepreneur now it's like now you have to do more business than the video side. I usually get stuck on meetings or trying to get clients or trying to get you know bigger packages, and sometimes I end up doing that more than the video itself. So you go into just thinking you're going to do video, but then you have to manage. You got to figure out how to do marketing, SEO, you have to do all that talk and then the video aspect, which is what I got in there for, becomes a smaller and smaller smaller piece of the pie.
Vipul Bindra:That's what happened Sounds about. That means you're getting successful, so have you, did you have your first six figure year? Last year? I think you were busy. I think, Did you get there? Or you closed, or you're ahead of it. I think you didn't check your numbers.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That's the first thing People do, right, I wanted to close my eyes, because I had Two weeks with the family and I just closed my eyes. But I think I'm almost. I think either I'm there or I was About to hit six figures this year.
Vipul Bindra:That's awesome.
Emmanuel Gallegos:My last six months Were very, very busy, my very busy. My first three months were slow of 2024.
Vipul Bindra:And then I just went straight from there Cause every time I asked you, for I mean, we did do decent amount of projects together, but you were usually busy, which is a good sign that means you know things are great, um, which is incredible. I'm so happy for you. I mean, like I said, you have a studio you're successful.
Emmanuel Gallegos:DP, you're doing great. I mean, what's next? Then I mean at this point, I'm not trying to do anything too crazy other than oh, my God, I think to throw a little bit of criticism on myself. I like juggling too much and I think now that I'm juggling a good amount of stuff.
Vipul Bindra:How many are you juggling?
Emmanuel Gallegos:So I have email films with my full freelance. I do full freelance with that Ident Media, where we do commercials and we're going out to try getting more clients with that. And then the studio. We're having a studio rental space where people can come in. We have our photographers there to do that work. We're trying to do masterclasses there. So the goal is now it's like I scale these and make these a little bit more successful, or more work with, you know, freelancing, and then more projects with the production studio and then more people using the rental space and then from there we'll see what we can.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We can add and I'm not even gonna jump in my, my personal life of how then that's a whole another crazy ball of yarn that I'm trying to to compact and it's it's always crazy how, like what you think you want when you first start, then, like, the bar keeps going up. I was like, oh, I remember, I remember, uh, it was like 2020, because 2020 was like the first year I started. Like the c70 came out and I was like, oh, if only I could have that camera. I got that camera last year and I'm just like, all right, if only I get this. And then now, if only I get this, you know, set of lighting, if only I get this. The bar is always going higher and higher. So I think it's just kind of like, you know, taking everything one step at a time and then really like my goal.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think this year is just trying to scale what I have right now and make sure like I don't really care that, like, hey, great, look, I have these three things, but I want them to be successful. I want the three things to be successful, um, and just, you know, put time into that and just do more. Because my, out of all the things I do, my favorite thing to do is like brand, like brand films, like brand commercials, like something that like tells a story, like very visually appealing. And I know sometimes, you know, as videographers we don't always get to do that a A lot of times it's I do a lot of social media content, a lot of vertical content, which is still like very I don't do, like I don't do like, you know, gopro run around, I set up a talk and head lighting to all that stuff that we all, you know, we all get used to doing, but then it's, you know, it's standard, it's basic, you know you get so used to that, so you want that little creative edge.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So I think we all have our goals. I think my goal for 2025 is just, yeah, like just get, you know, growing more income in that, in those three aspects, and just getting more projects like that, getting more, getting more gigs. And then also, like you know, on my personal life, you know, enjoy enjoy some aspects. Don't enjoy too much because you get so stuck in this world that you you kind of live in the world of like, video, video, video, video, video, video growing or selling or doing this kind of. I think it.
Vipul Bindra:I think a lot of people can admit, once you do this for a while, it kind of each your, each at your life, each of your personal life I mean that that, but I think that's with any entrepreneur you have to be crazy enough to first want to do it, and then you have to do it all the time, so you just become like that becomes you.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Exactly.
Vipul Bindra:And then you don't want it to blend into your personal life, because the last thing you want to do is go to your significant other or your friends and then be talking about video. Especially if they don't give a shit about video.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And then you're like you know they don't want to hang out with you anymore. And then you figure out, uh, you're the, you're the problem, you're that guy that's always blabbering about his video thing or this or that. And then even uh, even even funny enough, like when you start making more and more money with this, when you're an entrepreneur, at least how I mean a bunch of people I've known great, you get all this money that you thought you'd never get. But now it's right back to the business.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So, it's like great, I got, you know, more money than I thought I was going to get two years ago. Well, that's going straight back into the credit cards I bought, all the studio costs, all this, all that. So it's like it puts everything in perspective. I don't think I still feel as rich as I was when I was poor, but it's just kind of like you're just allocating money for your business now. This is like an engine you have to take care of to make sure you get more money. So it's, you know, it's always, you know, life's an interesting way. We're like yeah, I'm doing what I love and I'm happy and I'm super fortunate that this is my full-time thing. Um, but you always gotta, you know, you always gotta be, I guess, put everything in perspective and be like, hey, this is something I I'm privileged to do and I am doing.
Vipul Bindra:No, that's my, my thing. You know, I've, I've learned and I finally accepted. You can never have enough money because, especially with video business, because what happens is like like you said, and it shows like, oh, if I could only have you know so much money, like I don't know a few thousand dollars every shoot I'm gonna be, I'm gonna have so much money. But then you forget shoots that pay more. They require more expenses.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You gotta get more crew or you gotta get more equipment. You gotta get more education, better sd cards, better battery, better, everything right and and then next thing, you know your costs are so high.
Vipul Bindra:And then you're like, oh, but once I have everything, I'll be good. But then you realize, oh, these cameras no longer relevant. This lighting isn't older.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Now like everything's like getting older so it needs to be replaced, and you got to be updating it.
Vipul Bindra:And then the higher you charge, the more you gotta spend. So you can never have enough, so sure you're making double but now your expense is double.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, exactly, yeah, anyway, anyway, man, oh my god, I mean, I wouldn't do anything else, but yes, this is crazy how do you feel about? I know you're more of the person that loves like. You're more up to date on the tech and stuff like that. I used to be, but then I've noticed like the more time I spent researching tech then the less time I was making money using the tech I already had. But right now I've tried staying away from like the YouTube videos of brand new equipment, dropped this or brand new that?
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, no, that's actually very smart. No, and see, that's what I want people to know do as I say, not as I do.
Vipul Bindra:but you know, I'm at least aware of it I do love gear, I do love technology and plus I'm, I have this obsessive personality and that's what separates me, right, like we all are good technicians, we all make great stories. So I think what separates me and I've kind of accepted it after years of knowing what I do, different I am. I'm obsessed, like, about video production. So I, I, I have this thing in me that I have to know about everything, right, what's new in the, especially, like we tested earlier last year, the whole reflective lighting thing.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I went to. I yeah K-Flow, right yeah the.
Vipul Bindra:I went the.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Godox kit the.
Vipul Bindra:K1 light flow kit.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think is the thing.
Vipul Bindra:But but I went on. You know multiple sets. I would hire graphers and they would have the crls panels and I was like holy crap, this is great, I want to learn it. And then I went all over and you know, not only on the top, I would be the one. It's so funny I'm supposed to be doing something else on the set. I'd be on the side like hey, so what do you think about these panels? Like, why are you using them? Because you know, you know and stuff like that.
Vipul Bindra:And then you know, it's just the, this inner thing in me you want to learn everything, and the what I love about this industry is you can never know everything, so I'm always like you're always learning.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, I'm always waking up, every day going I don't know about this.
Vipul Bindra:I don't know about this, but I don't know about this. But which is good that means it keeps me because somebody like me.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It keeps you in an industry where you're always you have something to feed on. You're always eating. You're always growing.
Vipul Bindra:Exactly Because when I used to have jobs, the biggest thing I hated was if I didn't have a promotion in four to six months. I was done Like I couldn't new and then with video. Now the good thing is I'm going about 14 years into it and I haven't yet wanted to quit, and I think that's what it is.
Vipul Bindra:It's because there's so much happening, so much news, so much change, and the people who don't um you know keep up with. Obviously you don't have to keep up with my obsession level, but you have to keep up, otherwise you're going to be left behind, because you know technology's changed and if you are not there, guess what you're going to be dinosaur and you know the asteroid's going to come for you.
Vipul Bindra:100, yeah, so, so so I that's actually to me a positive of the industry but a negative for my personality that I spend way too much time testing and and working. But I think that, like I said, that's I think, is a competitive advantage. When I somebody tells me a problem, I generally know how to solve it and it's because I freaking know about so much stuff he does.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I've called him on.
Vipul Bindra:I've called him on set this thing I rented from you. What's going on? Yeah, exactly, I should stop renting you things. I'm like where's my roi if I'm doing tech support on the?
Vipul Bindra:call, but no anything for you, but no, that's that's what I'm saying. I. I just love it. I'm just so glad I'm lucky enough to to be able to make a living from it. But, like you said, the lesson here is to make a living from it. I had to let uh, let the business person ripple bender, come out and and succeed, not the creative and not saying that I couldn't can be creative I'm still going to be creative.
Vipul Bindra:I still get to do all the fun stuff. But when you have to make money, you have to treat it like a business. It cannot because you know, as a creative person, you just go oh, you only have 100 bucks on the set but this movie sounds really exciting.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Let me be on it, right, I've always wanted to do this.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I've always wanted to put my C70 in a car and drive it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You know what I mean.
Vipul Bindra:I'm just trying to be you, but what I'm saying is that's kind of what I think most creative brains go. They just go.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I just want to do it. I'll do it. To do it yeah.
Vipul Bindra:And then that's why they realize oh crap, I'm not making any money, I can't pay my bills, I have to go get a regular job. And they leave this passion behind because you had it, like you said, treated like a business. You have to at some point yeah, you have to talk about revenue, your costs, your profits, your investments of gear, if it's even worth it, because are you going to get your return back on?
Vipul Bindra:what you're investing in it Because you buy it you don't use it. Now it's worth half. You know not worth it, type of thing. But yeah, it's a whole freaking lesson right.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And then it's like you have to balance out that type of very carefully of like, hey, how creative can I be and how much do I have to focus on business? And some people they love the business aspect of it and that's amazing, and then some people that like it less. And I think you need to find you know what fits your personality best, but also understand, like you know, some parts will make you more money than others. You can be the best videographer, but if you know you don't know how to sell, then you know you, you can be on the most shoots, but you know you're not getting that money back because you didn't know how to you know rate yourself correctly. You don't know how to give yourself a day rate. You don't know how to you know how, um, what's it called? Um? Um talk to the client about getting a good rate or or even packages or whatever absolutely.
Vipul Bindra:And then there's the opposite side of it, right where you do get really good at selling, and then your technical skills are way, way far behind where you went to a client.
Vipul Bindra:You pitched them a 30 grand project and somehow convinced them you can do it. And then next thing you know you show up with you and two of your buddies and you're like, all right, let's knock it out of the park. And then you know it doesn't match up. I'm not saying it'll be a bad video, but it won't match up what the expectations are right even you go to it to do the project and you just end up being a producer which isn't bad if you love producing great.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But if you go into being one of the person that wants to create a commercial as a director or a dp or whatever, and then you're just not even doing it, you just hey, I can't do this, I have to be selling, I've, I've done, uh, and that's the thing too. Like sometimes you're, you're on set and you know that you're on set losing money because you could be making the next sale, you could be making the next money. So it's just that thing. It's like you you got to realize, like, what you want to do and sometimes some positions as an entrepreneur, you have to make the sale. Like there's been times where, like there's three shoots on the same day, I gotta hire two other people and I can't even pick my favorite one.
Vipul Bindra:I gotta pick the one that pays the most because, exactly and I mean to be real you, once you get to a certain scale, that that's what the job is. It's a puppet master, right, where you just are out there doing the sales, managing the projects. You're not actually the guy doing anything creative. And a lot of people don't get this. They're like, oh, but I could then be on set and do better than the puppet master. No, the reason people are willing to pay a guy at that scale I'm saying because once you scale, scale you're the puppet master. And the reason people are willing to pay that much is because they want reliability.
Vipul Bindra:When you are investing 50k to 100k, let's say, on a corporate video budget, right, yeah, you expect it to work, you expect it to be right. You can't risk that money. So you'd hire somebody. You know for a fact they will make sure this is done, this is done how you want it done, and because you know it's their head on the line, right, exactly. But at the same time, they're not really doing much. But being the puppet master, they're hiring the right people to execute on it.
Vipul Bindra:That's just the scale of our business. Yeah, you go from doing it to now just leading it and then letting the other technical people to do it, yeah, exactly.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So I think yeah, and then I think, once you're doing it, you realize what you want to do. I think some people just don't want to be the puppet master because they enjoy the technical side so much. That's perfectly fine.
Vipul Bindra:It's just hard to make that much money doing that.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But then you cap yourself on how much money you can make Exactly.
Vipul Bindra:I think you said this like there's only 365 days out of the year. Yeah, you have a day rate. You can only make this amount of money. Yeah, times that. And then remember you. Most people also have to then remember in that math there's travel days, usually half right right. Then there's prep days that are zero paid. So you know what I mean. Once you take that out, yeah, that's your cap and then there, that is it. Like there is no more.
Vipul Bindra:And the only way you can scale that is by having other people work like I can be like hey, man, I'll go to do this project for me. Or like now, obviously, that you don't make that much, right, you can only pull a certain percentage, like 20 to 40, off of it, but now that's free money in a way. Right, that's the scale basically. And then we're both of us are happy because you're like hey, I got work. And then I'm like oh, I got some percentage for managing this project yeah and that's this, that's how I think it scales.
Vipul Bindra:Um, but yeah, like you said, not everyone wants to be a puppet master, yeah, and which is why they have a cap. And then they're like how can I raise this cap? And it's like, uh, it's going to be hard, and at least being a technician- you can, you can start a studio or maybe you can open other avenues of income Do real estate inside. I mean at that point video becomes just a hobby, right Then then? Then what's the fine?
Emmanuel Gallegos:Well, I mean, like you said, yeah, it's a hobby, but I mean, if you still make money off of it, it could be, like I don't know, a part-time job that you like to do.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah.
Emmanuel Gallegos:If you really want to make more money and still stay as a technician.
Vipul Bindra:I mean it's possible, yeah, but my whole thing is look, and you know I've said this a million times. I'll say it again there is so much money to be made. You make money. Yeah, there is nothing better. Uh, if you're, if you're passionate about I'm saying that, then make money. Yes, obviously there's easier ways to make money, but there's no reason you shouldn't be making money doing this you just have to understand what people are willing to pay for.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, and stop selling pretty videos, because I don't think that many people want to pay for pretty videos, especially as a brand. Yeah, what they want to pay for is videos that work yeah, so just start selling that Start selling videos that actually work.
Vipul Bindra:And if you don't know how to make those videos, go meet people around you that know how to make those videos. You know what I mean. It's very simple, it's not a complicated process and I think money's there because any brand I will give it. I'm a video company and I'll pay you to make me a video that makes me more money.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You know what I mean I think the secret too is that I think a lot of people start and I started with hey, you're selling, you know, your, your business or your video to individuals, and then you realize when you ask for a thousand, 2k, 5k, 10k, it's coming out of their pocket and they see it as a whole different thing when it's coming out of their pocket. But when you're talking to a brand, an agency, a company, that's the budget, that's just a number and that's you know. For companies that even don't want to spend it, in their mind it's like, ah, it's just tax, like my taxes will take care of it. Boom, whatever I want this, this is going to grow my business and it's more. You know, it's easier to to convince them and even convince them. It's just you're telling them how to make money.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, okay, do this video on. This video will get. You know, put this video in front of the clients you need and then boom, you'll get. Your revenue is going to go up. Rather than, hey, a person that just wants, like a photo for the family or done videos for individuals like a year or two, Just because you have to.
Emmanuel Gallegos:it's that you're bashing heads on, trying to you know, I guess convince them that this is going to grow something. But if they don't care about a company, they don't, they just want something personal. They're not going to see the value in that Exactly Now.
Vipul Bindra:How much I love making videos for individuals, not individual I mean like for business owners, because you know that's the most satisfying ones, because you can show them the results. I think the easiest way to make money is to go to brands where there's a marketing director or marketing manager, somebody you can work with, because I find is it's not their money. I hope that makes sense. So a budget even doesn't make anything. Here's who your client is. Your client is that marketing director.
Vipul Bindra:What they want is your video to make them look good. So they're the hero in the story, right? So, um, the point is they, when you make that video, if that video makes the loss or it doesn't work for the client whose head is on the table, that marketing person, yeah. So they want to hire whoever. They don't care about the money, even though they may say, oh, we only have this much budget. They want to hire the right person for the job that's going to get the best video done, that's going to get the results that they're looking for, which is going to make that person look like a hero to the boss or to the CEO, or to the board, or whoever.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Oh, this guy knows what he's doing, that's all they see, they just see the marketing guy. Sometimes they didn't even meet the production company Exactly.
Vipul Bindra:Exactly, and that's, I think, what people need to do is find these people, build a relationship with them, make them trust you and obviously keep that trust up. But the money doesn't matter to these people because it's not their money. They'll write you any check as long as it gives the company enough roi, because, remember, if if they give you a million dollar check, they better make 10 to 20 million dollars off of it.
Vipul Bindra:otherwise, yeah, you know, it doesn't matter, yeah simple math but but the the certain thing where they're like, oh, this is our budget doesn't mean anything. I've had so many times clients tell me like oh, we want to make a video, our budget is 10 grand, right, and I start to ask them. I'm like you know, it sounds great, but then. Then you start to ask the vision. Oh, we want to hire actors, we want to do this, we want to do that.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's like this is a huge production. We want to have a 10-day yeah. We want to have a special effect yeah.
Vipul Bindra:We want to hire mark hamill to be a cameo yeah, we want this, this specific song in it, you know, from this famous artist, you know. And then, once you like, figure that out anyway, like what their budget is. You have to then be like look, this is how we can do it within your budget, this is how we can do it better and the correct way, but this is what the budget is going to have to be. Yeah, and then you draw the line right there, because you're telling them the truth and usually, in my experience, they come back and they'll say okay'll, we'll do the right budget because we're gonna do it right.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And the biggest thing I've learned the hard way a few times is sometimes you want to please a client and you're like this is gonna, this is a little bit. Sometimes it's just even a little bit below the budget. You're like, should I say something? Should I should? I just bite it? You know, just just you know, bite my tongue and, and you know, do a little bit extra work them, this could be a good client. It always bites you in the butt.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, always bites you in the butt. Um, even there was one time where I told this lady like, hey, like we don't really do motion graphics, but you know, we'll do super, super basic motion graphics for this, even though the budget isn't even there you the whole editing. And then I went out of my way to do myself I'm not a motion graphics guy, but hey, I, you know, I I did a pretty decent job, basic motion graphics, yeah. And then she, she was like I don't really like it, can you redo it? And didn't do it like this. And she sends me a whole advanced motion graphics thing. And I was like, lady, I told you like this, you don't have the budget for this, you have basic motion graphics. Like, yeah, can you just slightly closer to this, to this? I made it like 50% closer to that.
Vipul Bindra:It's because, like I said, I mean, that's nice of you but, like you said, it ultimately came to buy you.
Emmanuel Gallegos:She didn't get what she wanted she didn't want to hire me again and it's just miscommunication. And sometimes you just have to say no before you, even if you know that budget's not there. It's not even that you can't do it or not. I know motion graphics people. They could easily have done it but they're going to charge a double triple and then the client starts. But then that's when you realize that's not the client for you or they have to understand that they need that extra and sometimes it's out of your hand though.
Vipul Bindra:So, for example, I had a situation earlier this year where I was working with somebody in the company. They were like, oh, we want you to record a speech and I was like, what's the budget? Oh, we don't have one. You tell us. I'm like, well, what level of quality. I could do this for one person for a few thousand, versus 10 people, for 20, 30, 40 thousand, I don't know. I mean, I can make budgets depending on what they want anyway. So, depending on what they want anyway. So ultimately, I went with like four or five person crew, six, seven grand, like it was a very reasonable price. And that's editing too multi-hour speech. Anyway, we executed the project and I I brought two extra cameras and two extra people than what I promised them. So actually over delivered.
Vipul Bindra:So you would think the client should be happy and the the main guy, who wasn't technically my client because I'm hired by one of the employees, was not happy because their wardrobe was not great, looking on camera the whole time. And this is a live audience speech. My crew can't stop them. We're just there to record a speech to a live audience. And they were upset about it, even though we had zero control over it, even though I went above and beyond. Um, there was a wardrobe issue that happened as he's giving the speech and there's no way we could have done anything about it, honestly, and um and so. So there will be all these uh circumstances where they're happy. At that point, all you gotta do is customer service, like hey you know it's not great, but you know there's nothing much.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, that could have been done. However, for the next time, we could have a wardrobe person or whatever, but at the same time I I was like you don't want to be interrupted. Right, you're in your zone, you're giving your speech you don't want somebody like hold on, hold on, stop, like fixer, unless it's something crazy. It's just a tiny little, you know yeah, that's something as camera people.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I'm pretty sure they didn't even notice. Yeah. Yeah no, like camera people, as a camera guy, like I don't notice hair, I don't notice makeup.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I have to like really like ask myself.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I was like do they like?
Vipul Bindra:this hair and sometimes yeah, you're focused on exposure and framing, yeah, making sure the light, you know, rolls off the skin softly and making sure there's three-point lighting and making sure that the on your left cheek. That's why we have makeup artists, you know unsung heroes.
Emmanuel Gallegos:They specialize on that, yeah.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, exactly, and that's their job. And if and sometimes I get it now we do work corporate jobs where they that's the one of the first things right, sound cuts gets cut, makeup artists gets cut. It's like, okay, you're the DP, and then those ones guess what? Like then you know there's not going to be anyone to pay attention to those details.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I mean, we can try a little bit, but there's a limit to what you can do, and then the client expects like, oh, like well, you're doing all of it. You should know.
Vipul Bindra:It was like well, you cut the budget in two thirds.
Emmanuel Gallegos:This is the only guy that's here.
Vipul Bindra:So what's your solution for that? What would you change to not have such For the lower budgets or? Like but just in general, just not have the miscommunication, Because I think the biggest thing to me, at least with Bindro Productions, if they're working with me, I want them to be happy right. At the end of the day, nothing's more important to me than my name and my brand especially since I was stupid enough to put my name on the brand.
Vipul Bindra:So to name and my brand, especially since I was stupid enough to put my name on the brand, yeah so. So to me, making the client happy is very important, but at the same time, sometimes what they're requesting is unreasonable, like like there's, like, for example, the past. There's no way to fix the pocket. Now, in the past and even the present, I'm just like I try and ask them, like how could we have fixed it? It's a lie, we're not even in front of the room.
Vipul Bindra:There's hundreds of people, and then we're in the back of the room. So so what? What's your perspective on that? Like, how do you?
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think there's a few steps. I feel like, once you start, I think you should always once you. I think, once you have enough equipment, once you have, once you're comfortable with your skillset, you should have a have either an Excel sheet or a Google I forgot what they call it on Google. Google sheet Google sheet, yeah, and just really nail down what you're willing to work for. What's your, I guess?
Emmanuel Gallegos:get out of bed money Like hey, this is what it's going to take for at least me, bare minimum, to go out and do a shoot and then just depending on your clients, it's like, okay, what's the bare minimum to make that project happen. And my whole biggest thing is we get into this job because we enjoy doing it, we like doing it, we want to have good commercials, we want to have good event shoots, whatever you're doing. So if you have a budget that you feel like it's undervaluing, you don't do it, because then you're going to do the doesn't matter, like, even if it's a good project, a bad project, if you feel like you're undervalued, you're not going to put the same energy. You're going to go to it, um, a little bitter. You're going to go to a bit, a little bit annoyed. So guess what? I get it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Sometimes you're going to pay the bills, um, but in those circumstances you're not going to come in with the same energy. You're not going to want to give 100%, knowing that you feel like you're going to take an advantage of. And then that second thing it's like that communication of like sometimes you're gonna have to say no if you know that their budget just isn't there and it sucks sometimes, and sometimes you're in that tough situation where, like am I gonna pay rent? I gotta do this, I gotta do that? Should I bend over backwards and and know that this project isn't gonna? You know it's gonna be really, you know, be really? You know a lot of free hours, a lot of free man hours, especially if you're the name to get it done.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But then you're always going to the client's always going to have an issue with it If the, if the, if the budget's a problem, the client's always going to have an issue with it. And that's something you learn over time when you try helping a client out, when you try doing a bunch, three hours of work. So I think my, my, my tip, my tip would just be like hey, like, if you know the client, just have your base of how much you feel, how much you you have the experience, how much you know it would take to do it, if not make some calculations or put an extra 20, 30% just in case, and if you can stay firm with that price and they say, yes, firm with that price and they say, yes, yeah, hey, you're solid, you know, you know you have the budget to do and you have a couple, a couple percentage you know, 20, 30 extra to make
Emmanuel Gallegos:if anything happens, you can make it happen. If it's underneath of what you don't think you can happen, I feel like unless you're willing to do you know, bend over backwards and and do work that you're probably not going to be happy with, then the client's not really going to be happy and that's. That's a lose-lose. They've they lost. Let's say, the project's actually going to be like 12, 15, 20k and then you say yes to like three thousand dollars. Yeah, that's now in their mind. It's three thousand dollars that they wasted because they still didn't get the product that they wanted. So either they're going to waste two grand or then, or they're not going to waste any money, or they're just going to hire somebody else and then get disappointed again, and that's even better for you. Sometimes you say no, they go to somebody else, you get a disappointed job, and then they go back to you and be like you know what, maybe 10 grand might be worth it.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, if this was a product with two grand and then you could do that with 10 grand, yeah, exactly it's just, you know, in very similar vein, I think the biggest game changer for me and again silly word game changer was but um, when I genuinely was like I realized um, you don't need those projects anymore, because what happens is, you know, and then I get this. You know the starving artist mindset you've got bills, you've got rent, you got food you gotta buy, you know other expenses that you have.
Vipul Bindra:Then what happens is, even though, like you said, the budget isn't there, uh, whatever, like you know, but, most people end up taking it or at least negotiating something whatever, but then you're not bringing the energy, you're not doing the right. What I found, at least for me, was as soon as I got to a stage where it was like, okay, now I don't have to say yes, I can choose, I can say no, I found that my business skyrocketed because now I was being fully upfront with people, like they would tell me an idea and I'm like, hey, this can't be done. Right. And most times people saw that, like they saw the honesty, because it'd be like, hey, here's one way I can do it, here's what we can do, or here's an alternate way we can do it. You'd have to up the budget on that and that may be more closer to the vision you're having, right. And then once I started to give people genuine advice, where it was genuinely like, hey, look, you don't say yes to this, I'll be fine, like my, my, my bills will still be paid, so I am not like that desperate, uh, to get that project.
Vipul Bindra:I found more people wanting to come back to me, even if they usually were like I will think about, are we not in the it? Like you know, you didn't hear back and all of a sudden it was like oh hey, you know, we thought about it, we definitely want you. I've had like argue well, not that often, but I've had a couple of meetings where the clients were just like we don't see the value and they're the ones who want to work with me and consistency is more important to your brand. I'm gonna make the same video here and here. It makes sense versus you hiring local people in two different states. The point is and they couldn't see it and I was like that I completely understand them, that it's okay you don't have to work together.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, right, and I walked away and it was so funny.
Vipul Bindra:When they called me, they were like let's do it. You know what I mean. You walk away from a call where you're like this is never gonna happen and that's okay. I was honest with them, I was up front, I gave them the right advice, which is to me what matters now. Now and then and it's funny enough when you get that call, you're like oh, and even the employee was. It's funny when we're actually shooting it, the guy, uh, not the owner, uh. That one of the employees was like I didn't you, you definitely didn't think this was gonna happen.
Vipul Bindra:I was like nope, nope, but he's like hey look you guys were the best and that's what, what that is, and I mean and and that gave me such satisfaction in that moment, because I was like they. I'm so glad I stuck to my guns, because you know if you're desperate, you would have been like oh, that's fine, I'll just take the local shoot, you can give the other shoot, because that's what the argument was. Right, they?
Emmanuel Gallegos:wanted to give the other, they would have done it, and then they would have been mad at you that it doesn't look the same.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, it doesn't match or whatever right. But what I'm saying is, by sticking to my guns and not being desperate to just be like, okay, sure, I'll just take half the shoot, it made them a better product and it made them happier, made me the right money and at the end, india, everyone was happy. That's just the truth. But I do get it. I don't. I don't think you can, anyone could just start doing this.
Vipul Bindra:So if you're like desperate to, like you know, pay your rent. Then you can't have that mindset. Even though you're saying that maybe to a client, inside you're like how can I make this work? And and that's. And that's why I think the first step is to not be in that that mentality. Get to a scale where you can say no yeah and I feel like, and then just don't say no just to say no.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You say no for a reason right, especially even like starting this part-time, like I know a lot of people, even me, like I had a job, a full-time job, while I was doing this part-time for a few, um, just because, hey, I got I need rent, like I needed these, this amount of money a month to make sure I'm fine, and then, once, once you have that, then, like you said, don't get me wrong, at that time I still said yes to almost everything because, starting off my first couple years, but that mindset of, hey, I don't need to do this, I think clients, once they feel that they feel that power over you, like, oh, I can tell this guy needs it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I mean, you know, and they're bred to lowball you, they, I mean you know, and they're bred to lowball. You, they want to save money for their company. That's what they want to do.
Vipul Bindra:And the scope keeps changing.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, the scope. Always, the moment you say yes, the scope starts multiplying. They want to add this, they want to add that.
Vipul Bindra:Let's also do this. Let's another half day here. That's what I'm saying. You got to always have contracts, you got to have your scope of work defined, because those are the clients I find again, uh, yeah, I've, uh, you know, I've had where, uh, and again I've discussed this other podcast but clients that pay higher value you more, and I found that they will, um, essentially, uh, you know, give you the freedom and then they end up getting the better product. It's also the clients with lower budget. I've noticed exactly, yeah, that doesn't happen. Yeah, it's like they're with lower budget.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I've noticed exactly, yeah, that doesn't happen yeah, it's like they're valuing you for your insight. They're valuing you for your, your skills. I think people that are lower budget they value you, thinking like, oh, now I paid you, now I'm your boss.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, you have to do what I say and do it how I say it and then neither one gets the better product, because they're not the expert on video, yeah, and, and the people who they hired weren't happy, so nobody gets what they yeah it's so, say you gotta hire experts, then you gotta let them be experts too, um and that's that back, because if you could do yourself, you would have done it yourself exactly, or you could have done it in-house.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But you pay somebody, yeah, grand, 20 grand, 40 grand, 50 grand. Yeah, because they're gonna, you know, get the, get the right tps. They going to get the right cameras, they're going to get the right cast.
Vipul Bindra:And I mean, at the end of the day, it is a business. You are out there to make money, right? I don't know anyone's lying to their clients. I mean I don't think you're going to your and I mean maybe some people are, but I'm not going to my clients and saying charity. You know, like I, all I want to do is help you. Yeah, like I have bills, I have expenses.
Vipul Bindra:However, I'm also there to genuinely help them, right at the same time, I make money because I help, yeah, so they gotta let me help them if. If they won't let me, then I don't know how to help them. Because if I don't even know because 90 of the time my conversation starts with we need a video, okay, what does that mean? Right, and so you have to dig deeper to even figure out what they want. And if there's a client who doesn't even want to communicate, then you can't solve a problem, right, until you know what the problem is. Yeah, so anyway, that's what at least I find is the budgets.
Vipul Bindra:When they get higher, that part gets easier. Yeah, but then there's the contrast. I meet so many video people who, when they suddenly start to climb up, then they just freaking go oh, I can make more money, that means more profit. And they don't realize when you go bigger, you make big money, but your profit chunks actually goes down, because they expect you to not keep 25 of the 50 grand. They expect you to, like you said, said hire the better crew, get an editor.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah grip, yeah a sound guy yeah that's how it will make the project worth 50 grand, not that they just expect you to make 25 a day right now you know. So there's, this is a contrast to, I guess, both things in life, uh, but either way, um, I think that's that, uh, at least what I'm noticing what happens with?
Emmanuel Gallegos:clients. Yeah, I literally got, um a client call back for another, another production, and the first shoot, um, what's it called the first shoot. I, I, I sent my money. The second one, I almost doubled it because I wanted you know fairly, because they needed more things, they needed a longer video, but then, because of that, because I need, you know, an editor, and then now I need a motion graphics guy and then now I need an extra person on set because we're doing sound and we're doing three-point lighting. I really look at the money I'm making as because, like I hire, like in my vision, how much am I gonna go in there, for how much my assistant, how much is the editor?
Emmanuel Gallegos:and I'm making almost the same amount of money yeah, in their eyes I'm charging triple, but I'm I'm really not just because that's how scaling works. You need somebody else. You can't, you can't and sometimes you don't want to do it all yourself, like I'm not a fan of editing are you charging a production company fee, at least when you're doing that? Yeah okay, so, so, at least you're okay, that makes sense but the thing is like that goes straight to like the production in my mind, like I don't even see it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That just goes straight to yeah, whatever, and then I get mine and then I'm kind of like you, like that's still a big portion still goes to the production, yeah, but uh, and I'm totally fine with that. That's just kind of yeah, of course you get comfortable and that's how you you gotta make money.
Vipul Bindra:So and then I'm I'm doing the same way where it's like oh, here, budget, okay, here's the production company's money. Now, here's the crew I'm going to hire, and if I'm on set because sometimes I'm not, I'm getting other people to do it, but if I'm needed on set, then I'm going to take my day rate out. Okay, that's going to be my day rate and that's going to be your day rate, or?
Emmanuel Gallegos:whoever's on set Right. So I think you're doing it very similar. You can't overpay you. You can't be like all right, well, 25 grand. I'm going to hire my friends for $200 a day.
Vipul Bindra:I've met people who've done that man, and then? They're like. Why did I not get them to repeat Like. Why did they not come back?
Emmanuel Gallegos:These PAs suck. They don't pay attention Like these guys are from like fresh out of college.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, exactly thing that this I've seen on sets is like where you're in front of a client and somebody goes like a p, like I don't know, somebody you hired, and they're like so how do you set up this light, how do you set up the stand? You have to understand the client's perspective.
Vipul Bindra:they're just like hey, I paid you five, whatever and then now you have people on set who don't even know how to set up, yeah, a light set, and then they probably do. I'm just saying they don't know exactly your lighting and that's why you got to hire people or get them comfortable or at least communicate better, because the last thing you want is your client doubting your capability.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, I think part of it. Even if, like, let's say, you do a shoot and it's chaos on set and you're making the client nervous, the end result is the masterpiece. They're still going to be nervous about hiring you again Rather than hey, you made sure they're comfortable, you made sure that the process was good. If they're going to be, they want the process to feel nice. They want to feel like what they're. You know, what they paid for is in good hands.
Vipul Bindra:No, and that's what I talked about in our last meetup. I was like look, you know, I don't know if you were there, I know you had left somewhere in the middle. I left before you were here. Okay, so you missed that, but that's literally because I remember I was going where's Emmanuel, I wanted to talk, give an example about you, and then they were like, oh, he left. I was like, oh, come on.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That felt so bad. So I was going to say good stuff. Then I was like anyway.
Vipul Bindra:So um uh no, but what I was talking about was um, I gave an example. What was I talking about?
Emmanuel Gallegos:you made me lose um, we're talking about making sure the client is comfortable with, with.
Vipul Bindra:Oh yeah, so so the biggest thing is obviously the hardest part of this. Thank you for the reminder. The hardest part is getting the client. Let's be real, you don't have to have any video skills, nothing. The hardest part is going to client, convincing them that you're the right person for it. Right, let's say, you got the budget, whether you know about video or not. Then the second hardest thing is actually client experience. A lot of people miss that. They go straight to the now okay, I got to make a good video. They miss that middle experience because the next time the client's going to see you right, they met you, you sold them the video. Maybe you had a middle experience, because the next time the client's going to see you right, they, they met you, they, you sold them the video. Maybe you had a production call or something in the middle like a pre-production call, but outside of that, they're seeing you at the shoot for the first time.
Vipul Bindra:This is when you're supposed to bring whatever they're worth and and and, not saying that maybe, if it's just a simple talking head, you couldn't do it with your tinal fx3 or whatever, or your C70. The problem is the client's expectations have to match whatever the budget was, and a lot of people, I find, forget that they're like well, this is good enough, right, this will get them what they need. But you have to remember the client doesn't know what each camera costs, what the card costs, what the battery costs. They can only visually see.
Emmanuel Gallegos:As well as how you interact with the people you hired Exactly.
Vipul Bindra:But I'm thinking like things like you know and silly stuff like how big your camera is, how big your light is. All that plays into the client experience and I think people should focus on that and I'm not saying just bring absurdly large lights or absurdly large cameras. As a DP, the moment you get hired, if you, if you get your day rate up to 1500, just put a map on your camera and then it'll be like, yeah, exactly, man, 1500 is worth it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:This that's when you put the man box on. Yeah, if it's less than 1500, I keep the map box in the case. I'm like I'm not putting the map box, like I don't need it. Well, there you go, then.
Vipul Bindra:That's now I know. Uh, that's how's how we can go to your photos and Instagram.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Right, You're like wait a minute, that's the shit. You got paid over $1,500. He got paid $1,500. He got paid. Look that one. He got paid $1,350. No matte box.
Vipul Bindra:But that's true though, right? Yeah, it's so funny and, to be real, I do use matte boxes, but I use them because I like to use HBM filters on them. But, however, let's be real.
Vipul Bindra:Even when I'm not leaving the filters, I'll just leave them on because it's part of the experience. Yeah, the perception to a client the camera package, you know, with their battery, V-mount battery, the body, the lens, the matte box. Handle you know microphone it looks like what they expect the camera to look like. Handle you know microphone it looks like what they expect a camera to look like. Yeah, a tiny camera, even though maybe the same camera doesn't, doesn't portray to them value. And I'm not saying again, any of this is correct. It's just the perception from non-video people you have to incorporate in commercial video.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Play into that, and you can still be successful without, yeah, doing that, but some clients do care about that more than others. Yeah, um, for sure, and I mean, as I think, as a dp too, like if you're just doing, if you're not growing a business if you're just a freelance dp, I think you can get away with you know a certain amount a certain amount of like.
Vipul Bindra:It depends on the shoot. Yeah, if it's like a social media project, I mean don't throw a mad box on it. But you know what I'm trying. Obviously you judge the project.
Vipul Bindra:The idea is if it's, if it's like adidas and it's gonna go on national tv even if the audience isn't gonna see the matte box the client prefers yeah but even if we were just talking about like that 25 grand project, where it's like the client expects the project to be worth 25 grand and I'm not saying again, all your skill isn't worth that money, I'm saying you have to match it up Hire the right crew, bring the right equipment and also client perception Make them feel like the production was worth the money they invested in it.
Vipul Bindra:And obviously, ultimately they're still going to judge you in the video. But I'm saying that's the first impression you're making and it better be good, Because guess what, these companies, companies they will keep coming back to you if you do a good, right job and if you don't and you may have done a great job if they don't feel you did a good job, they're not coming back I'm gonna give you a real world example from last month.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I got hired from with one of my friends and we go out to uh to to a client to do to do a shoot and he was telling me he, yeah, they really didn't want to hire us. They kept telling like, yeah, we have people in-house, we can do the video in-house. And he pushed for him to do it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And they finally said yes. But they said yes like begrudgingly and they really thought that they could do it themselves and our goal was to make sure they knew like they made the right choice. Our goal was to make sure they knew like they made the right choice. We went in there. We brought the best camera call when we had we set everything up. We were super friendly. We made some jokes. Make sure that they had a good time that there they were, talking to the camera, make sure they were comfortable and they had a few you stinkers in the first couple of takes. But then you sit down, talk to them, make sure they're comfortable. Uh, get some water and the whole shoot.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think it was an eight hour shoot. They had a great, had a blast they were. They were even to the point where, because it was a couple, there was a point where the guy was just cracking jokes. I didn't hear him do a, say a joke the first hour or two and then he just started cracking jokes. He started smiling, he started having fun. The video started going by faster. There weren't that many retakes. Everything was going great. By the time we were done I don't even think we weren't even done yet it was like a break time. They were like, yeah, and the next time we fly you, okay, we fly you out here again. We're gonna do something big. I want to talk about this, we want to talk about that. And boom, we already locked them in because they were having a good time on set. We made sure they felt comfortable. They made. We made sure that a little bit like uh funny, but we made sure it felt overwhelming.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, the camera setups okay, I said, this felt like oh shit, we can't do that ourselves.
Emmanuel Gallegos:They have three-point cameras. They have a whole, the Rode. I forgot what those are called the Rode audio setups.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, the Go 2s. No, the Pro 2s or whatever. No, the thing you're using right now, oh yeah, the.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Rodecaster, the Rodecaster. Okay, I never do audio. I just sit back with the whole roadcast of the headphones, the lighting, everything and then they're like, oh, like we, we actually got our money's worth yeah, exactly, and they didn't even see the video, yet they haven't even seen the edit at all exactly, and that's the.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That's what you want the client to feel. You want them to feel comfortable. I think, yeah, something I always try pushing is just uh, customer, uh, what's it called? Customer service? Customer service my first like four jobs were just customer service at theme parks, and it's just like making sure the customer feels heard, making sure they feel valued, making sure that they're having a good time, because when it's their money, they want to make sure like this was worth their money.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I think my best example for this is Five Guys Like absurdly in my opinion, again absurdly priced hamburgers, cheeseburgers. I think their burgers are priced way too high. But here's the thing you order fries for them. It doesn't matter what size you order, they'll be half like the same size. Let's say you order small fries. They'll put not only small fries in the box, they'll be in same amount of fries in the bag. They purposefully give you double the fries.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's not a mistake.
Vipul Bindra:They made overdose, you exactly but what happens is your human emotion, like I don't even want to eat those fries. But when you open the bag you go oh my goodness, I got a small fry or I got a medium fry and this is like feed five people fries and and it's, and obviously they charge you that in the, in the sandwich or whatever, in the burger or whatever. But the point is they made their money. That was already part of the cost, but what you ordered was a small fry.
Emmanuel Gallegos:The perception is completely different, exactly.
Vipul Bindra:And then instantly you go oh wow, no other fast food place does that, right, or whatever, and you instantly are like happy about it, right, and I think that's how you have to think of video production. It's obviously do the right job right, hire the right people with the right equipment to execute on the budget right. However, pay a little bit of attention to, I think, the element of, like you said, uh, the experience, because I think that will help you when you go to show the video and when you go get them to give you a review or to get them to become a repeat client or retainer client or whatever, you will have a higher chance of success just because that first shooting experience and that whole experience in general was beyond what the expectations are.
Vipul Bindra:And here's some real life examples for me that I do. I always will bring an extra person. So like, if the shoot says you're going to have three people and two cameras, yes, you bet they're going to have three cameras and you know an extra person there. I always budget for an extra person. Now, it may be only a PA or I'm saying a smaller extra camera, but there's always more than what I budgeted. And the advantage because the client knows my deliverables or my contracts are very clear. This is what because you know I don't want any arguments, it's a clearly says like this is what you're going to get. You're going to get, let's say, two half day shoots. You're going to get three person crew, two cameras, right and lighting and sound or whatever. So they know what they're getting. So when you show up with an extra person or an extra camera and they go oh yeah, this is they.
Vipul Bindra:they know this is more than that right and it feels good yeah, it feels good as someone.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You and you throw mad box on your camera. Don't forget always a mad box. Yeah, if you want to make them feel good, throw a mad box on them. That'd be like yeah, this is legit. Um, yeah, like, always give them more than they feel like they asked for, even though in reality, like you said, they're already paying for it, like the budget's there for a reason. But make sure they feel like they're getting a little extra and it's not going to pull like oh, you're getting a little bit less, exactly.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But, you're probably going to get that client as a retainer client or a client that comes back and that's worth way more than an extra couple hundred dollars.
Vipul Bindra:Here's what I'll tell you. I think you may know this. Here's what I found Now that, again, like I said, initially when I started the production company journey I didn't have anyone to lean on. I knew a lot of people, but nobody that wanted to share their information, which I thought were successful. Now that I know they weren't. That wanted to share their information, which I thought were successful, now that I know they weren't.
Vipul Bindra:Eventually, when I actually finally met the people who were making real money, you found out they're very open to it. And there's one common thread that at least I found In the corporate and commercial world people who are making seven figures or more. They're A very open to share their information and, b they treat their clients like royalty because most of their money is coming from four to five top clients. Like, if somebody thinks that somehow every year you're going to get 50 new clients who are going to give you $10,000 to $15,000 projects, you're out of their mind. I mean, maybe there's one unique case, but typically it's the same people. Tell me if I'm wrong, right?
Vipul Bindra:It's the same people giving you work over and over again is how you make majority of your revenue. Obviously, you'll get new clients. Some will become retainers, some will not go away from being retainer, but typically it's your top five clients that will make 80% usually 70 to 80% of your revenue, and the rest, all of the extra ones, just make the tiny amount, yeah, and so what you want to do is be looking for at least that's what I'm looking- for I'm looking for my next, you know, adding to my uh pool of people who are actually paying my bills, and the only way you can do that is by making them happy.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So they keep coming back over and over again so you're rather and especially if they're good paying like like. It's always a weird thing where, like, some people try doing more of its low budget because they want to feel like they're adding more. But when you have bigger budget, I keep that mind, keep the mentality like, hey, these guys are giving good money, like I don't, I don't mind singing an extra hour, I don't mind. Hey, like, guess what? Here's some screen grabs, we got it, look really good exactly or even, or even.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Uh, if they're not, if the actual person hired using on set updates? Yeah, they love updates and uh.
Vipul Bindra:But no, yeah, keeping a client is way more cost effective than getting a new client and and some of the best way man is, it's again. I'm a data hoarder. I tell people there's nothing more valuable as a production company than client data. Which I mean by data for us is video, like you said, sometimes what we'll do is like year end or just randomly for a client that we may not have worked for a few months. We'll just I'll tell my editors like hey, take some footage, like throw them a quick little something, right, and then when you give it to them they're just like, just like hey, they're surprised because they're not expecting that and for us it was maybe I don't know four or five hours of edit cost.
Vipul Bindra:But for a client that's like, oh, hey, you repurposed that old footage to give them something I don't know. Like hey, do we just notice you had a five-year celebration? Let's say they didn't hire us or they didn't even do anything major. You can quickly throw a little montage or something for social media and you send it them. It's those little things and I know, in our group at least, people have talked about sending like physical gifts or stuff. I did try that six, seven years ago, like I tried to send thank you cards and stuff, but I found this digital like using our data was far more valuable than using our physical, yeah, a business card anyone can send.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, or but I'm saying even a toy, like a gift, like a pen or or or some kind of bouquet of flowers. So I'm not saying physical gifts are bad, but at least for me our data is what we have that they don't have right especially as a production company.
Vipul Bindra:We keep all the footage. Footage, yeah, um, and, and you can repurpose that. It makes them so much more content and it doesn't need to be something grand, obviously, spending a lot of your money on post-production, but I'm saying I find that at least is that cherry on top where they go frick. I got to keep coming back to this person.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I got to make more videos. Yeah, and especially like you could have just been on their mind and then they forgot about you for six months, eight months, maybe a year or two, sending that, you don't know. That could be the time that they're thinking about doing a commercial, doing whatever niche you're in, and they're like we should do this. And then boom, the video pops up Right at the perfect time. Guess who?
Vipul Bindra:they're going to hire, or it may even not be the like. Oh my buddy here at this golf course is freaking, thinking about getting a video or whatever I don't know, uh, but yes, just do nice gestures. Again, I think the simplifies, like give them a good experience, yeah, during the production, definitely, and then after you've delivered, maybe a few months after just go above and beyond for your clients.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Man like keep them and have a good time. It's like like you should be friendly with your, like it shouldn't just be only a money transaction. I shouldn't be like just not too friendly. Yeah, yeah, don't be too friendly, keep it professional but yeah, like it's good to see them on the street and talk. I saw a lady that hired me at a restaurant.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I went and I talked to her for like 20 minutes caught up with her was this I recommend her, her the food I liked. It's good to see it's like this is what we do this for a living. We want to have fun, we want to make sure we have a good time, and even for the shoot in DC for us it was like yeah, like well, technically we got to talk about that shoot, but, yeah, that was a fun shoot.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That was a fun shoot, but that was a fun shoot, but I mean, thankfully you didn't hire me, but even if Adam was there and he was there we probably would have done the same thing. I'll take a tiny credit, yeah, he definitely brought me, so I was like let's bring Bipple out, let's bring Bipple out, let's explore the city and enjoy the people. You're there, even the clients. We ate with the clients.
Vipul Bindra:We talked and we threw some jokes and so, um, the shoot that you're talking about, we went to a few months ago, um, adam, our buddy, who's gonna be on the podcast, um, uh, uh later. But he, basically um, is making this documentary and he brought me on um as like the dp, I guess, uh, for that that first uh section of it and it was, and then he was like hey, who do you want to bring with you? And the first guy was like you got to bring Emmanuel if it's in the budget and I was like you guys obviously talk and figure it out and it worked out.
Vipul Bindra:But, what was amazing to me was and like what you're talking about was normally here's at least what I do.
Vipul Bindra:I'm so freaking lazy. I travel, you know. I don't know we were last year freaking some. I even went to Arkansas, of all things like it's. You know it's random like we travel so much so I just go freaking airport to hotel room to shoot back to hotel room, you know, maybe eat out, but that's about it. Like I'm not really like looking at cities, versus what I liked about that shoot was not only I think we made great images, I think we killed it for the, the, the equipment that we brought and the, the setups and everything. It was just fire. But then later, you know, if it was me, I would have just been like, all right, let's go to the room, and so I love that hanging out with you. Because you were like no, let's just explore the city, and normally I would have been like no, uh, but you know it was you and you know we're cool. So I was like yeah, absolutely. And then I think I had the blast of it. We were literally like late in the evening, just on those, those rental bikes.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, even though I made you spend five dollars.
Vipul Bindra:Oh no, dude, that was expensive I mean I and you don't realize this, because you know we're just having fun, we're just riding, riding out it was like 50, 60 bucks. They charged me for the little e-bikes or whatever it was.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Oh, no, we got e-bikes.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So what we did is that we were. It sucks that the sunset was so early, but we wrapped at like five dropped our camera coming off went straight to.
Vipul Bindra:DC and just drove around yeah, pretty much Our bikes and just looked at all like the national museums went out to all the monuments went to, the capital made some, but the weather was. Yeah, we wrote back.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That's a talk about that um, and but yeah, it's just like, like, like I keep saying before, like you do this, because you do this, because you love it and like hey, take advantage, like I love, but that's an extra advantage that I don't take normally.
Vipul Bindra:I'm saying that was fun to do because you know we're in a beautiful place. It's fall weather, dc that was. I think it was incredible weather incredible weather.
Vipul Bindra:It was like red and and yellow leaves, falling exactly trees and we, which we don't typically get in florida we have just hot and more hot and even more hotter if you want to see like a, a natural Floridian, see any, any any or if you want to see their jaw drop, just take him anywhere where there's red and yellow trees Exactly, tree leaves falling off, or even snow.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, you see snow and you're like, ooh, Exactly, yeah.
Vipul Bindra:That's like my kids oh my God, my daughter's been like we want to see snow. I'm like not here, you're not gonna see any snow here. I mean this weekend, yeah, unless it's like you know, fake, I took the mice skating, oh yeah, but anyway, um, but yeah, no, that was. It was beautiful weather. It was incredible shoots and incredible food too. I think the places we went to, like, we had like, uh, students from what?
Emmanuel Gallegos:georgetown, whatever, singing at the bar georgetown I forgot the bar, but we went to georgetown and there was a acapella group yeah, they were just singing behind us yeah, and we're just there eating, having a good time, and it's it. It's the experiences that matter and, and I think that whole thing, it was okay. What, like a four day?
Emmanuel Gallegos:yeah, I think, with travel it felt for me like a week, because we had a whole shoot day. Then we had dinner with with some of the clients and we went out explored, uh, and it was, yeah, it's just make, make them make the most of it exactly, and then I think that's what I want to do more in 2025 I want to actually and thank you for the inspiration.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, when I go to these cities actually, you know explore them instead of just yeah.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Take your manual I'm down for just making man on my tour guide yeah and you know.
Vipul Bindra:But you know, enjoy it, because I think while you're there, enjoying, that's an extra bonus of us doing what we do. If you're traveling, so much might as well, especially that traveling itself is such a hassle. Yeah, no man, Especially with all this gear.
Emmanuel Gallegos:If I'm only in the airplane, then on the shoot, then on the airplane, nothing wrong. I love shooting, but it's exhausting in a way.
Vipul Bindra:Like doing anything is exhausting, especially with that big case man that's. Oh my God.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I saw it on, I think, b&h, and I was like, no, don't buy that, I don't. I almost bought it for the travel one in Dallas. But I was like, oh my God, I'll just jam my 300C in my suitcase and hopefully it doesn't break. Thank God it didn't break. But yeah, even with that Vegas one, I was so close to going to that Zedd concert because I love Zedd and I think it was you, you, me, and then like two other people and I was like, hey, anyone want to go to the Zedd concert?
Vipul Bindra:with me.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And everyone was like no, we're tired.
Vipul Bindra:I was like, yeah, we went to the casino, didn't we? No, that night we went straight home.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think, but I was so bummed that I was like I don't want to go to these guys I want to see because I I'm a person that, like I enjoy things tenfold than when with somebody else.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, like be happy we saw hoover dam or whatever at least we were able to do something. But but see, that's what I'm talking about, like, I think, exploring the towns and and that's something on top, because we're already going to be working.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I think, if we can make incredible images but also have fun, and I think that's what I like about shoots with you. Yeah, typically, I find most other filmmakers are like we're like so used to traveling, we're just like hotel, like I don't want to go see the town, yeah, but you bring that energy where it's like no, let's go explore, let's go see this, and like, and then, and every time I've done it, it's like no, let's go explore, let's go see this. And every time I've done it, it was worth it.
Vipul Bindra:It made the trip better. That DC trip was one of my most memorable shoots. Funny enough, budget-wise it was one of the lower ones. But when I go back and I'm like dude, I had an incredible time I'm telling Adam I was like dude. We got to do the rest of it. By the way, when we're done with this podcast, we get to watch the draft of that video I completely forgot.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, he just sent it to me. So, so we get to get first look at it. I love it and uh, so, but that's what I'm talking about, like we, I'm like, dude, I'm down for it, because this is the type of shoots we're talking about helping a buddy out making an incredible documentary about an incredible topic that matters. Uh, that's going to bring about an impact and we got to explore the town and hang out with each other and discuss business strategies and just fun.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think that's an expassion. I feel like I did. We're counting that as a documentary, right, because I know it's a little bit more corporate, but we're counting that as a documentary.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, that's a documentary, but then that would be my third documentary.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I did three documentaries in 2024. And just the more I do them the more I'm like this is. This is so enjoyable, and especially, I think, as a viewer of a finished documentary, like on netflix or whatever you watch a documentary oh, okay, okay, cool, two, three hours.
Emmanuel Gallegos:What's the story? But when you're there, for each interview is like an hour, sometimes two, yeah, and even for the I did one. Uh, it's called uh, empowered ink and it's about, uh, breast cancer medical tattooing and we interviewed I think eight uh victims of breast cancer, uh survivors, and then we it was like an hour interview each, so damn, like we're sitting there for a whole hour and just hearing their story, hearing them like the emotional parts, and we talked to the medical tattoo artist, we talked to the researcher, we interviewed I think 10 to 11 people and you get imagine each of those as an hour.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So that's 11 to 12 hours of content and then all the B-roll that I'm not even going to include, and then it's all crunched down to an hour and 25 minutes. So you get so much when you're a part of a documentary and it minutes. So you get so much when you're part of a documentary, um, and it's amazing because you can, you know you can see it and then you can see the final product. I want to I think that's also a new goal when I start pushing in 2025.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, slowly, do more documentary work and yeah pushing that I'm gonna put it out there, since this is actually going. Uh, you know, live, um, my, yeah, that would be like a dream, like at this point I've done pretty much everything in the corporate commercial world. I feel like that is to be. That could be done, at least that I'm interested in doing. But here's my other passion. I love formula one. So if I could just do some kind I mean, I know drive to survive already exists, but I'm gonna. You know, like I said, I'm gonna manifest it. If I can just do a documentary, something with formula one, like if somebody could just pay me dude, I would, because that's like incorrect.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Combining literally both my passions could be several yeah, man, that's like I think I know you said like there's like three or four clients that pay like your main bills. That'd probably be the amount of budget they have. That'd be one of your main and one of your favorite, exactly no yeah, I would, I would.
Vipul Bindra:That would be one of the things which would make me drop like everything and go focus on that for a while. And again, it doesn't even have to be actually Formula 1 itself, but like one of the teams or somebody you know, I'm saying some documentary around there where I could have pitland access or I don't know, just access to the drivers or whatever.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I mean that would be incredible and it just adds on to the experience and I think that's I want to. I want to always remind myself like hey, like, do something new, do something creative, because, like before I did this, this didn't seem real, this I didn't seem like I could travel and do shoots and explore, dc, explore this yeah, I'm doing it, but you know, you shouldn't get comfortable with it. Like, hey, like, I still do want to make movies, I still do want to make documentaries, like great, like that's my next step. How do I get to that? What do I gotta do to get better at this? What do I gotta do to make better connection? So it's, it's, it's a great, it's a great career. Man, this, um, anyone that's like nervous about starting? Yeah, I think it's a great career. You just have to let it. You have to let it evolve, you have to let it change you in ways of especially how to make money and then how to make good content.
Vipul Bindra:Like you, you learn from it and then learn the parts that will keep you afloat in this crazy economy so what would you tell I mean, I know it's a little cheesy thing to ask people what I want to know like what would you tell yourself? You know, if you could go back, now that you've learned all this business knowledge and not just just knowledge in general would you tell yourself two, three years ago, when you were, you know, coming up in it?
Emmanuel Gallegos:uh, what would you tell yourself to do then immediately, instead of now surround yourself as fast as you can with people that know way more about what you want to know about um that, and then also learn more of the business side, because I think it's so easy to get passionate about the visual side and I I think, yes, you can get really, really good. There's this thing that I really you know, saw a lot is like you can, you can learn so much about a certain aspect, but then you're gonna get thing called like diminishing returns of like how much, especially if you want to make profit like hey, you can be, let's say, a b-tier videographer and like knowledge. But but yeah, you can be an A plus tier, but you know the sometimes the amount of money that you'll get from B tier to A plus tier just on knowledge alone isn't going to be that great.
Vipul Bindra:It's more on connections.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's more on business, it's more on those other aspects. So if you're starting off, yes, the visuals and getting good at your camera and doing all this, it's going to make your images look great Overall, I think the best way of getting better is just experience, just being on set and just you know trials, and every single time I'm on set I learn just a tad bit more and I'm like, okay, don't do this setting or do this setting or this is a little bit better, but that business aspect of getting to know people, getting to talk to clients, being able to close a sale, will make this career, I think, easier to jump into earlier than some people do part-time or some people even they jump into this thinking this is going to be their whole life and then they have to go back to a full-time job or a part-time job. Yeah, and it's always a bummer because we have bills to pay, we have things to pay. I don't. I don't think I could start this now with zero knowledge, with all the bills I have to pay. I'd have to do so much.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You know, you know full-time jobs, you know maybe even another part-time job, and then do this, which is this is a lot of work and I we've put.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think once we do this, we put so much hours and time into it I wouldn't I don't even want to talk about how many hours I put into just research or how many nights I just spent like watching the new camera gear or the new this or the new business tactic or all the things you learn. So if I could go back, I guess to simplify, it is just like be surrounded by people that know more than you, uh, and just be their friends, just just be friendly, be friendly with everybody you know and then learn not just the creative side but the business side of how you can make this a reality. Because it seems all nice and glamorous from you know the youtubers especially. They make it look really nice and glamorous, but, uh, you got bills to pay, and the faster you can figure out how you can pay bills and if you can find the middle ground of paying bills and doing your passion, I think that's where you can get a good sweet spot exactly.
Vipul Bindra:I think. Uh, I think you hit it right where what I tell people, man, the best thing you can do is find the people and surround yourself with the people where you want to right there is. There's nothing better you can do for yourself. You don't have to go buy courses or do something crazy, it's just those people are out there, right? You're like hey, I want to be the best video guy or I want to be the best editor, I want to be the best production company owner.
Vipul Bindra:Whatever you want to be, find people in your area who are experts in that and then just go talk to them. I'm pretty sure most good people will accept it. They're like hey, I saw that you're a DP. I saw your work. It's incredible. I would love to learn more. Do you have some time for coffee? How about next Wednesday or Thursday? And you know most people. You'd be amazed. They're like down to share, especially if they're successful. They're down to share and talk about it, and they love talking about it because that's why they're successful. And then you are right there where you want to be and that's where you ask like hey, tell me your story.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Or or, even better, like what do you think I should be?
Vipul Bindra:doing examples how I started working with you. Yeah, I mean, dude, that that story's still amazing and that's why I still remember it. Because, uh, what was it?
Vipul Bindra:david's meetup, right yeah and I was so hesitant. So, by the way, one rule so when, as soon as I, you know, I was a freelancer like you, so I'd seen all the negative. So when I started my production company, my only thing was even no matter who I ever hire, I gotta pay them something. I don't want free people on my set because I don't want to take advantage, I don't want anyone to be ever able to say it. But then that opportunity came and I really wanted someone to like PA or whatever, to just assist, and there was no budget for it. So they was a meetup and I was like, look, I don't know how to bring this up, but this is an opportunity.
Vipul Bindra:So I already have like six person or whatever. We had crew five, six person, but right, and I would love to know your perspective in a second. But mine was like, hey, you know, it's not not pain, but it could lead to way more paying things. And, uh, you, you obviously volunteered and that's what I like. I knew you again, I wouldn't have brought just anyone else from my email, just so. So don't email me I knew you in person.
Vipul Bindra:We'd met a couple of meetups. Yeah, uh, you do. I get too many emails like can I come work with you? It's not to be, mean it's like, unless I know you, and I knew you.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, so at that point you have to be comfortable with the person. Yeah, exactly 100%.
Vipul Bindra:And what I loved that incredible was like you were there. You were there early, you brought your gaff tape, you were ready to go, you were ready to, you know, switch roles Because at the end and as soon as that happened, I needed I didn't know anything about your skill set yet, which was good, but I'm just saying I don't know if you're a good camera guy, you're a gaffer, whatever you are. I just know that you are somebody who's there and you're willing to be part of the team, to do whatever it gets to be done and, like I said, it was a little awkward for me at least personally. I don't know if it was for you to just hire someone for free, because I don't like that, but I think I hope and I, like I said, that's what I want to know from you that you felt the you got the return on your investment with me because we did what I hired you a lot, I feel like for the last over two years.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, the past two years it's, yeah, I think, decent amount. I would say, yeah, are you I 100 it's like one free, one free project, and then what we went to vegas together we've been to twice or thrice, like two, three times we've been to Vegas together, dc together, we've been to Miami together.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We've done a lot of projects and it's just going out and, I think, dropping that ego of like because I was working, I was making, you didn't need to do that for me, but you did it and, like I said, I appreciated that, and then kind of what, like, the advice I gave was like, oh, I I could tell, like, oh, this guy knows more than me, this guy does this, um, like I'll take whatever advice he has.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Or like, let me, I just want to be around them, let me see, um, you know how I can relate to you. Know, I love, I'm a, I'm a very I love relating to people, I love connecting to people. So, and then we connect a lot. We always talk about either camera gear we're always just business or anything.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, we're out and just get distracted and just talk. It was just kind of like hey, let's you know this guy. Always he knows more than me. I'm down to give my for someone. That's um, for people I haven't met like I, you know me like I've done.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I've done pre projects. I haven't done them in the past couple months because the whole studio thing. But it's not bad to go out there and just put your ego down and just work with somebody and just have fun with somebody and just make something together. And then when you see somebody's skills, when you show off your skills, sometimes people like they'll remember that.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah exactly they want you back somewhere else and and the truth is remember, and that happens at any level. To be real, I don't know if I'll ever work for free ever in long, long time, since I've done that. But if Roger Deakins calls tomorrow and says, hey, I need an assistant DP, guess what I'm working for you? I don't even need to know what the budget is. You know what I mean.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's kind of like that Everyone has somebody or some level goes like hey, yeah, exactly, they're like hey camera person and there's no budget, but we'll let you be.
Vipul Bindra:You know, track side or whatever, and I'm like dude, I'm there. Normally I would never say yes to a free job, but that's what I'm saying, it's, it's.
Emmanuel Gallegos:There's always that for somebody, yeah and you have to take advantage when you don't have kind of what we were talking about before, when you don't have the privilege to say, no, you got to pay rent. Yeah, yes, free project might seem like, uh, like I'm working and I'm doing for free, but those are probably one of the most. I think I've gotten the most work out of doing work. Yeah, because you connect with people and they see the value you're bringing exactly um. You know some. You know I've I've done more free projects. I haven't lit anything but the ones I have I've I've led to. You know great friendships.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You know great work, a lot of knowledge you've learned, and then you bring it back to your own and you bring it back to your own skill sets your own the way you work, the way I do a lot of my camera stuff, the way I do my three-point lighting, was based on how you showed me how to do three-point lighting and then, ever since, like that's just how I do in my three-point lighting.
Vipul Bindra:It just works you know, and it's not set rule, but yes, it works most of the time. Sometimes you just have to do different based on location.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, but see, and that's what I love hearing that cause, you know, and I know you never felt that cause I even asked you. I was like I hope I'm not taking advantage of you, but this is the job requirement. I just want an extra person there and I don't have the budget for them. But what's incredible is that you got something out of it and it seems like to me we worked a lot over the last, like I said, two years. I think it was worth it and that, if you learn anything out of it, man, like I said, it was great and, like I said, what I learned from it was from you too.
Vipul Bindra:It's just been, like I said, having fun on set and being open, because you never know fun on set and being open because you never know, because, like I said, I wasn't open to the idea of having someone free on my set, being real with you, and you were like that first exception in a long, long time and to me it was worth it and that's why I was like, oh no, I gotta bring him more and anytime I could. Now let's be real. You know like sometimes budgets don't work or things don't work, or location it's fly, and where they don't have budget to fly you, but anywhere I could, I try to bring you on, because it was like hey, you were fun, you were different, you were an extrovert very, very much what I want on a set, I think for a few months we're working together like almost every yeah pretty much.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I mean even this year. I feel like we did. I said this last year, we did tons of projects. Uh, I mean, like I said, we went to d wasn't mine, but you know we did it together, but then also the conference that we did for like four or five days together. So I think there was a decent project. We also did a bunch of stuff for my financial client up in the villages that we did. So that was decent.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, we did a lot.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I think we did a lot and that was great and that's after me going. I think he's beyond where I can hire you now which is great.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think it was mainly the studio took a lot of my time.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah.
Emmanuel Gallegos:The studio took a lot of my time, and then yeah, and then I got to Same thing.
Vipul Bindra:I've been kind of freaking. I've been pretty much AWOL for three months trying to build this space out Exactly, you know. So I get it. But ultimately I think you and I have had a very good working relationship and it was the best exception I ever made and, like I said, I was so glad that you were willing to do that. But yeah, tell me more. Tell me more about our. I don't mean if you have anything, if you don't, but what would you say? How would you describe our working relationship, the projects we've've been through? Do you think it's helped you? Obviously that was good to know.
Vipul Bindra:I didn't know, about the three-point lighting thing. Yeah, but what? How would you compare? I feel like you've worked in the area a lot. You've been on a lot of sets, so how would you describe my working style compared to a lot of others, or how I conduct?
Emmanuel Gallegos:that or just in general.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You know, I want to know, I think something that you, you bring in when you do your sets. That I like a lot is you. You always try bringing more value than the client expects or the client does. I think you invest a lot in equipment and your knowledge. I think a lot of people I think a lot of people even in like even they'll probably get paid even more than probably you or me, but they probably just don't even bring the same equipment. Or we even had a discussion before the podcast of people that have more money or have the better equipment but then they don't know how to really use that to the best of their abilities. So it's just kind of like hey, you, you, you put the time into it, you, you put the time into it, you, you put the energy, you put the money into it, and then you know what you're talking about. And then I think clients know that when you talk to them, they know that you put the time into knowing your craft, you put the time into this.
Emmanuel Gallegos:There isn't a I don't know there is. Hey, you have this question. Here's a solution. Yeah, and I feel like you with and I think that's that's super inspirational for for anybody that's trying to learn how to do their things like, hey, make sure you put time into your craft, make sure you go out there, like that. I think that's also why I I do spec guides like hey, like, let me test out my camera equipment.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Like I've learned so much of my cameras on either cheap projects, paid projects, uh, or free projects. I just go and, okay, every time I do something, you learn, uh, what rig you like. You learn this camera works. You learn what your camera is good at. Where your camera is not good at, uh, you learn how to talk to your clients. Yeah, so it's yeah, making sure whatever you say, you have you put the time into just backing it up and making sure that you're confident in what you're talking about well, that's good to hear, man, because if anyone's going to tell you the truth, it's you, because I feel like again, we've worked so many uh, you know.
Vipul Bindra:So if there's anything negative, feel free to get it out, but I feel like we worked enough. The last couple years that you should know enough about, and they were all different style sets we've done. Conferences we've done like talking heads we've done events yeah uh, we've done, like I said, uh, live streams. We've uh, we've done documentary. I mean a very wide variety of type of projects, right?
Emmanuel Gallegos:so yeah, and it's, and it's always good to. I always like I have a thing where I've noticed this, where I've learned to just bounce off, uh, and I feel like I've learned to like fill out what needs to be filled out in the room. Yeah, so, for example, like on the dc shoot, you were doing all your technical stuff and the client was there and I was like, okay, well, I'll make sure the client's comfortable. Hey, we're doing this, just so you know. Hey, we're doing that.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, and I appreciated that because I had to literally do the remote production stuff, set up the remote producer thing.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So I was like so, figuring out the Wi-Fi, and good to be a. The goal is to like hey, like you're hiring me I want to make. My goal is to make your life easier. Like my goal isn't, uh, hey, great, vipple is hiring me, I'm making more money. No, my goal is okay, he's hiring me. What does he need? Does he need this? Does he need okay, he needs three cameras. He needs it here, here, here he's letting here. He likes this lighting, I'll make sure I'll put this lighting. Yeah, he wants this aspect?
Emmanuel Gallegos:okay, boom, and then just use your skill set to make sure they're hiring you for a reason. You hired me for a reason. You're hiring me to make sure we have a good time on set. We're making sure the image looks good obviously priorities the visual looks good and then the client has a good time. And then I, from what I hear, a lot what people tell me is like, hey, when you're there, the client has a good time yeah, and that's very important.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, and, and somebody who's an introvert I love hiring, like I said, people that are like you, who are a little more extroverted than at least I am, because I want my clients to have a good time and if I'm so busy figuring out everything, I don't want to be have people on set.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's hard. It's hard when you're doing the setup, but not to discount it.
Vipul Bindra:You're also very good um, technically and also, let's see, this is why I like to hire, so not, I don't think you don't have military background right but, you're very similar.
Vipul Bindra:So I'll tell you, I like to hire people who are x like, uh, military or anything, or army or whatever point, because I find the biggest skill set that I've seen those people acquire is they can be leaders, but they can also follow right, because in military there's a hierarchy, so, matter what they were leader of some and then follower of some, so they're very good about it, and that's the skills that I noticed in you, which was like you said. You immediately I knew I was like Emmanuel's worked with me, he knows exactly the kind of lighting I'm expecting, and then so I'm like Emmanuel, hey, can you help light this up and can you help light it up? And then I know there'll be 90% there. I may just have to tweak a little bit and I don't have to like teach you. I never stood once there and told you I wanted this Right.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You just figured it out Like you were able to, or even on sets where you're not there. Yeah, okay.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, you were able to follow right and automatically. And then, but on the same time I'm setting the remote production stuff, you're able to lead. You realize, hey, this is what the client needs right now. And you lead, you're like, oh, they need to know what's happening, why it's happening Exactly.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And so at one point you're a leader, but on the other side you can do both roles which is very, very, believe it or not, it's not that easy, because you've got to be able to do both and um, I think I think in production, either if you're doing doc narrative or whatever, even if you have a specific position, your goal is to make sure the project goes smoothly as long as you like. Make sure the project goes, because sometimes, guess what? The the gaffer is distracted and that fight that has no sandbag yeah, what are you? Gonna do ignore it or you let the do yourself.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, you're not doing anything, right, not do yourself what you're not gonna throw power poses. Tell them you're the dp.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You ask me a question about the f-stop I'm not gonna shout at you for not knowing it's you or me it's, it's, it's really, um, I I think one thing um is me kind of going on a little bit of a tangent, but one thing I it's I've noticed from, I guess, the American education system is that the belief of if I just do this, I'll be successful. If I just do, if I just follow the rules, if I just sit there and if I just have my head down or if I just make sure everything is good, I'll get hired. But then, like at that's how I grew up in America of like, hey, high school, just do this, this, this, you'll get a good job and you'll get paid and whatever. Then you go to college, and then sometimes a lot of colleges, they keep you the same mindset. And then the moment you get out of school you're like, okay, what do I do?
Emmanuel Gallegos:And then you, it's just there's so many like you have to be, have to have the entrepreneurial mindset, I think now more than ever, and you have to do more than one thing to be successful. You have to be able to this, like what we do, it's more business talk, it's more connected with clients, it's solving the problem, it's editing, it's video shooting, it's sometimes doing Photoshop. There's a thousand things you have to do and you have to take it upon yourself to learn it yourself, or ask somebody, uh, to show you the ropes, and you have to be out there and and not assume, just because you have the bare minimum set of skills, you deserve more than you actually do. Yeah, because that's not.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I don't think that's working generation anymore yeah, I think we have to be better than the next person, and then that requires you to put more energy, time and efficiency in in your skill sets and who you are.
Vipul Bindra:And I don't want to get too much into it, but the thing is, what I've noticed is, again, the system is designed to make you a worker bee. Right, it's designed for you to get your education at least schooling, and if not, you know college if you want to go there, but ultimately you're going to lead to go work somewhere. Right, you're going to go work either at a fast food restaurant, or you're going to go work at a tech firm, or you're going to be a coder, but regardless, you're going to go become a worker bee. And I think what the world is lacking, or at least we're not training people enough, is the skill of entrepreneurship, and that is what America is based, based on. You know us inventing things or or building things, or or I don't know just being at the forefront of innovation. And the only ways you can do that is you have to stop. Stop and think for a second right as a worker be, you're trained, okay, so here's the process. Right, you do a, b c, d and then you just do that right.
Vipul Bindra:You flip your burger or whatever you put, put mayonnaise, you put ketchup.
Emmanuel Gallegos:They teach you all the way up to D and then you get to F and you're like Now what you didn't teach me F. I'm not doing it.
Vipul Bindra:Exactly, or you're just so miserable because they're paying you less than what you can afford your rent for. So you're like how am I supposed?
Emmanuel Gallegos:to survive on this little pay, especially in a place like Orlandolando. Man, it's crazy expensive yeah so.
Vipul Bindra:So I think that's what the emphasis is, and if it's not there, then you lean toward youtube university, because you have if they have that mindset despite the the system trying to make you a worker be. Uh. The only place most people can turn up to is either someone in their life right or to youtube university to find all this knowledge. And then the problem with youtube is there's gold on here, but at the same time there's so much crap yeah so you, the hardest part is not the information.
Vipul Bindra:It's filtering through the crap where there's people you know who have no experience telling you what to do.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Uh, to get to the, the golden information that you need, or even them telling you like sometimes it's gold information, but you're not even at that level yet. You don't know what a f-stop is. You don't know what this like I don't like and then you have to, and then every different creator thinks you know different knowledge, and then it's a headache to go through. But you're going to have to go through it, but it's free, though it's free, it's accessible.
Vipul Bindra:You can do it on your phone, which pretty much everyone has nowadays. So as long as you have the itch. But that's what I'm saying as a system level. We're not creating the itch, but if you do have it, you can fulfill it. You don't even need college, at least for what we do.
Vipul Bindra:You just have to like I said, dig through YouTube and find the good stuff, and hopefully not watch the trash stuff, yeah, and then hopefully you can find some people locally around you, um, who are willing to, you know, take you under the ring or at least uh talk to you, or coffee or whatever, yeah um, and then provide them value, exactly like.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I don't think if I, if I just was like, oh, I'm not getting paid, I'm only gonna do this, this and this on that job, that I did, no, and then I would have never hired he would. He would have been like, well, this guy doesn't give a crap.
Vipul Bindra:You know there was people on that shoot that were never hired again.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, exactly there you go.
Vipul Bindra:That's what I'm saying. It is what it is because they did the bare minimum. And I'm not saying this attitude. Also, I don't like people above and beyond. The idea is just be part of the team, man. That is simple.
Vipul Bindra:Obviously, we all have roles. We all have, you know, certain pay that we're getting. So I completely understand that, Like you're like oh, I'm not going to obviously work 15 hours. If you hired me for four hours I get that, you know. But what I'm saying is, at the same time, just work in a team, Like again life is simple. Let Life is simple. Let's not complicate it. You, you you're in a set, you know help out yeah.
Vipul Bindra:Now, if it's something unreasonable, I get it, like you know, obviously at that point then you don't go back. But if it's like a little reasonable hey, there's a few bags Like hey, do you mind helping load? Why not? We are all working together.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's a whole project If you're the producer director if you're the one that got the gig or if you're the PA. Like the whole goal is to make sure the project goes in smoothly, exactly.
Vipul Bindra:And I think that's the attitude that gets you successful. Obviously, you have to work on your business skills so you can be the leader and make the majority of the money. Because obviously, as a technician you're not going to make money Right? So I, when I'm the producer director, I make way more money than when I'm helping other people out as a right.
Vipul Bindra:That's just, this is how it is. All you can ask for is a day rate, travel rate, maybe expenses, right, what's this? You can charge a lot more. You can charge production fee and you're doing that, so I get that. But at to improve your skills if you're just doing work for yourself, right, you have to have to have a balance of everything yeah, and I think that's the key and it's kind of what we.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I think the topic we started off in the beginning it's balancing out what you want to do because, like you said, like you will make more money if you're producing, if you're the one planning out the shoots, you're the one doing the sales, but you'll probably have more fun doing a dp if if that's what you went, you know, started off as yeah.
Vipul Bindra:And it's. But it's actually the harder to be real because guess what? Now you have to have a little bit of knowledge of everything, because if you are not producing your job but you don't know anything about sound or lighting or whatever, now you're choosing between five sound for your gig. How do you pick Right, if that's one thing? So as a producer it becomes slightly harder because see, at least as a skill set, as a dp, you can master it right. You're like, okay, this is what I'm going to do, and you don't even have to own the camera if you you know, have like alexa, for example.
Vipul Bindra:We'll say you can learn enough, uh, and maybe even rent once, like just so you practice. So you, now you're a skilled operator. It's not that complicated, the methodology of f-stop or aperture or whatever, and shutter speed and all that is the same. It translates between cameras. So your framing, your composition, all that you don't need to relearn. That I'm saying for different camera systems. But worse is when you're a producer. Now you've got to hire a good sound guy, you've got to hire a DP. You've got to hire a good sound guy, you gotta.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Hire a dp, you gotta hire a grip, you gotta hire a gap. Yeah, what if your?
Vipul Bindra:grip shows up with like a, with like I don't know some kind of condition where they can't lift weight. So you're like uh, how do you do grip work without? And I'm not like, I don't know, I don't even know how to, how to maneuver around that it's crazy that the more you grow in your career, the less you you have to do.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But you started off as it like you said a producer.
Vipul Bindra:It's just all those responsibilities yeah, you didn't even think about that. As a dp, you just get high, you show up to set with a smile on your camera and just exactly, and now you're like you have to learn a little bit about everything which you may not even be interested in.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Like I say, let's say you're not interested in sound, so you're like, oh crap, now I gotta learn about something I don't care about it's a different set of challenges yeah, and it's like I always tell people and encourage people, like, hey, if your real passion is dp and you don't want to do more than that, you can. You can still be very successful.
Emmanuel Gallegos:You can make definitely six figures just doing dp work, and that's that's a that's a good amount of money yeah, exactly if that's what you want and that makes you happy and guess what like like less, less equipment, less stress, less, because guess what the bigger projects were um that had dog and I'm making the calls. Sometimes they're more stressful than me just showing up and just pointing my camera.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, it just kind of depends, and I think doing both is a good middle ground, because, hey, guess what? You're growing connections, you're, you're providing a different type of value to the clients, uh, and then you can do those bigger projects you can show off and you can be like hey look, I did this commercial for this company or this or that, and then, if you get lucky, you can sometimes even be the CP on that, if that's your favorite aspect.
Emmanuel Gallegos:And then sometimes you just get a great gig as a freelance CP where all you have to do is point your camera, press, record all day and then you get the footage off and then you get paid you go home just chilling not having a good time I, I, I personally love the mix that at least I did in 2024 yeah and I'd love to, um, I'd love to do more of both and just and just, you know, have those balances of of jobs.
Vipul Bindra:No, I think, uh, man, that's what I'm saying. This conversation is so amazing, that's what.
Vipul Bindra:I think I would have loved to hear what you need and I think that's exactly where I am right now. So I started, like I said, with freelancing, where I only did freelancing. Then I started my production company and for years I only did production. I would not take any job, freelance or DP or anything. And then the last couple of years I've been doing both and I found this is what makes me happy, because there's a balance. I'm on other sets where I'm not the boss, I'm not in charge, and I'm learning so much. I'm hanging out with creative and, like you said, less stress. It's like, oh, bring this camera package or whatever, and you know I'm there. Or sometimes it's not even a camera. Like, oh, bring the sound equipment, you're going to do sound or whatever. Or you're going to be the gaffer. I get to have fun, I get to be, and I also get to see the other side of it. What are the requirements? Like, hey, they didn't tell me about this or this. You know, lunch wasn't good.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Or you know, crafty wasn't good.
Vipul Bindra:You know what I mean Things that you learn. And then the shoot freaking doesn't start till 2. And now it was freaking midnight. It's like what it's been 14, 16 hour days. What are we doing? This was bad planning.
Emmanuel Gallegos:This is going to be some nightmare shoot, yeah, by that producer.
Vipul Bindra:So now, when back to my shoot, you know I go okay, I got to plan this better. I got to make sure you know that I scale the, you know, schedule it properly.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's a great bounce back and it's a great. Yeah, like, like you said, like should always learn from every, every shoot. And I think, like what people said, like school only teaches, skyrocket, absolutely. I think we've all been blessed to be on sets where we've been challenged and we've learned and now you know, always do record, always, oh always bring the right batteries.
Vipul Bindra:There's one lesson that nobody you know, that's most important hit record, always hit record if you don't hit record that's the best way to never get hired. I've seen I've seen those memes on instagram when it's like when you shoot a client for two hours and you press the record. If you don't hit record, that's the best way to never get hired.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I've seen those memes on Instagram when it's like when you shoot a client for two hours and you press the record button and then you see the record button start working and you're like, did I just not record for the past?
Vipul Bindra:two hours.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I have nightmares about that I think I call them production nightmares when you're like oh no, I formatted the card.
Vipul Bindra:Luckily I've never done that, but I've seen other people. That's why I'm so obsessed. Like always, both cameras cards I always simultaneously record, always back up in multiple Always, always, always, always, always.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Back up to the cloud.
Vipul Bindra:I cannot lose footage.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I've learned to appreciate some cameras and the way their buttons feel when you press the record button, Because you know you're like yeah, okay, hi, it's recording some cameras, yeah some cameras. You're like, you press record and you don't really know. And then, um, this happened to me years ago and I was doing more bend coverage. I'd press record and I get a nice panning shot and I look and it just says standby and I'm like, ah, and then you have to do it all over again or the last time.
Vipul Bindra:Okay, something funny similar happened. I mean, it was just B-roll, but if you remember, on our DC shoot.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We got our gimbals crossed. You got to tell the details.
Vipul Bindra:So essentially, I had a Ronin RS4 Pro and an RS3 Pro, and then the FX3C went on the 4. And then D went on. 3. Point is they were supposed to be reversed, so each were already paired.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So for the people that don't know, you can pair the gimbals to the cameras Bluetooth, especially the FX3s, and the gimbal itself has a record button. So, you can. It's great because you can press record straight on the gimbal.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, it makes it a lot easier. You don't touch the camera, you don't affect the balance and you know, five, ten minutes into our B-roll session I'm like why is it standby? I? Know, and see, it's me, I know I hit record. I'm like this is not recording and then I'm like I feel awful because then I'm like what is happening here? And I do again.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Two minutes later, it's not recording.
Vipul Bindra:So what was happening was you were hitting record. It was stopping my recording.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I was tinging your recording oh my god it was. I'm so glad we caught quickly so it wasn't like that, it was like five we caught on up to like five minutes, five, maybe ten minutes max. Yeah, but I was, I I thought the same thing, but we're both quiet because we're in front of the client.
Vipul Bindra:We're not gonna say that, we're not gonna be like. Why isn't my camera recording exactly exactly why we work?
Emmanuel Gallegos:so well together.
Vipul Bindra:We both knew what was happening, we both kept quiet.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We both kept our mouth shut and then they were like are you done with the B-roll?
Vipul Bindra:No, just a couple more seconds, I got the same, I did the same panning shot four times making sure I got it on B-roll and I was staring at the red button.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I was, like it says, record.
Vipul Bindra:Oh, that was funny. But see, that's what's so silly. So even after years and years of doing this, it happens, and I don't even know how that happened. The cameras just sort of swapped.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But hey, we caught on to it, we got the shot, the the footage came out beautiful I don't want to, but I just love that we both had this exact same reaction and we stayed completely quiet. You're like why isn't my camera?
Vipul Bindra:yeah, I was like I first time was like maybe I I could have had a crazy, you know, jet lag, I don't know. But the second time I was like I know for a fact, I hit this record button it's not recording what happened. I'm sure you were feeling the same thing. You're like why is this?
Emmanuel Gallegos:dude, I did a whole like over the shoulder pan at the newspaper Go back to their face and they're looking at us. I'm like what? What is this? All my hard work. Anyway, that was a fun day, but, like I said, no harm done, we caught on to it.
Vipul Bindra:Did you tell Adam that story? No, are you guys going gonna hear this? Oh, he's gonna have nightmares.
Emmanuel Gallegos:After this he's like why is this b-roll so choppy? He's cutting at the perfect time oh, that's funny.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I wonder if he's tired of that. Yeah, I would love to ask. He has an editor, so maybe the editor thought the editor was like why did they keep cutting at random times? They should be recording the cutting it makes no sense.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Anyway, I keep seeing footage of just her feet. What's going on?
Vipul Bindra:when we were packing up.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I saw my camera rolling.
Vipul Bindra:I was like why is it? Recording and thanks to my simultaneous recording. Even if you delete it, it was saved. But no man, that was funny. That was the only time I could think of I had anything like that happen.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But it won't happen again, ever you know.
Vipul Bindra:for me that's like the lesson. It can happen only once, cause I will fix it. Like the first time ever I did some kind of shoot. I don't do the music stuff, but it was something like six camera, like a music thing.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Anyway recording.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, you could call it that like private concert or whatever. And I did great Remember this is with low resources, I only had like GH4s back then or whatever but I recorded it. The footage came out great. I'm like, dude, I'm doing shots like cool movements. This is just me recording the whole band somehow with GoPros and you know cameras, what I could at that time. Point is, I came home and I'm like, oh, you know, and I was getting paid like 600 bucks, which sounds like a lot, and I was like, oh, this is so easy, all cameras are going to be lined up. I just got to hit multicam, you know, final cut. I could just hit the button and I'm done. Oh, dude, I started editing. It Guess what Freaking thing wouldn't sync because there was so many freaking cameras and it was. And you think, oh, line up the waveform. Again, I'm very technically sound. There was something wrong, some frame rates. Point is it was not freaking line up, dude, that 20-minute edit whatever became a freaking three, four-day edit.
Emmanuel Gallegos:At that point I was like okay, this was not worth it.
Vipul Bindra:Now I'm working at $2 an hour because I'm trying, because I had to manually line up everything. So it did work it just it would not work automatically and guess what?
Emmanuel Gallegos:the?
Vipul Bindra:worst one and only time I've been in next day I bought tentacle sinks for everything.
Vipul Bindra:I was like from now on, everything will have time code. I am never again experiencing this and I've never had that again. So you know only once. But yeah, that was a nightmare. Oh, and one last one that I had recently. Somebody I used to have a button just in case to burn in the light if you're doing a live stream or whatever. Again, I don't know why, because it's still going to live. Never had an issue, because I know the button not to press it, but I think you were with me at the Miami shoot that what happened yeah.
Vipul Bindra:So I think what happened is we walked away to have some snack or whatever and somebody else was trying to adjust a camera and they accidentally hit a button and freaking, burned, burning the line. Thank goodness it was the phantom lot, so it's a good conversion lot. It didn't really ruin that much yeah, I'm pretty sure. Again, I wasn't there, we were both yeah away.
Vipul Bindra:but that's what I think happened and that kind of annoyed me and the first thing I did was disable that button. I was like never again, you know. So again, it wasn't like the end of the world. We were able to salvage it.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I remember when you told me and then I thought so hard I was like I didn't press anything.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, I was like this was S-Log3.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, I know for a fact. Three, yeah, it makes no sense but then. But then you realize you know somebody else messed up. You know I, I have a horror story and this is why I always recommend, especially if you're you're, if you're someone in college or if you're interested, do this for free. Trust me, like the first couple shoots is do it for free, because I think the best mistakes to do is when you're not getting paid. The moment you're getting paid 10 grand and you make a mistake that you couldn't be making when it's free, then it's game over, like blacklisted from at least someone's circle. But it was like my first year and I was doing a lot of narrative works and I got hired to do all this is free, by the way, but hired to do. All I was getting paid was pizza, I think, pizza, and then, like some lunches, pizza, pizza.
Vipul Bindra:Pizza. What type of food is that?
Emmanuel Gallegos:Get out of here. Lunches, pizza, pizza, pizza what type of food is that pizza? All right, so, uh, my friend, I was shooting with my canon m50 at the time. My friend was like, hey, um, I have an adamos ninja, you can shoot progress from it, so you can put it on top of the camera, connect it with a hdmi and they'll record pro res. It was like awesome, let's do it. The first scene was all the way. Oh yeah, the first scene was like a huge, like long, long take. We go there. It takes two, three hours. It was all the way in the beach. We shoot it and then I get home and then I press play on the footage and something. If you guys never have done this, the Atomos takes a video and it records exactly what it sees on your image. So if you don't have a clean feed, it records all your settings onto the image.
Vipul Bindra:So you didn't have a clean feed, I didn't have a clean feed, and then you have to have both a clean feed you can't have a clean feed you can't have a detailed feed't have a clean feed.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I didn't have a clean feed, and then you have to have both a clean.
Vipul Bindra:You can't have a clean, you can't have a retail feed in the clean feed yeah, it's a, it's a cheap camera.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's like it was 500. So the first day of the shoot, all you see is like the one. It wasn't even like. It was like the edges. Maybe I could have cropped in. It would have been ugly crop in, but it was like the rule of third lines then all the settings on the side and then a big waveform on the bottom right and I'm just like oh, wow. Did you?
Vipul Bindra:reshoot that, or you got fired. I mean you were free, so I don't know.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I told them I feel so bad and they might hear this. But I told them this was like four years ago. I was like, hey, by the way, uh, we might have to reshoot the thing again. And they're like what, what happened? And I was like, oh, the card got a format. It was too embarrassed, too embarrassed to ever say it.
Vipul Bindra:Oh my god to me. I would have rather heard that other story. That sounds more fun than card guard format. Oh so I have the footage, but it just has overlay, I feel like.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But I mean, my logic at the time was like I feel like I look smarter if my card got formatted than if I had my display display information on the screen the whole time I was probably my most, most embarrassed. I don't think I've ever messed up that bad, but that was, by the way, that was my first year, that was a free shoot and that was the best time to make that mistake.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, and that to me that's not that bad. For me, I mean, it's bad because you have to reshoot.
Emmanuel Gallegos:But it's only one day. Imagine six days of shooting. All the footage is unfixable.
Vipul Bindra:That's exactly what I like the Ninja monitors for. It's when sometimes you know you want to record the feed, but outside of that, yeah, that's kind of crazy.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, if it's planned, perfect. If it's not planned, it's not going to be. That would be a nightmare, oh dude.
Vipul Bindra:I had to worry about that Right now. The setup is so funny Again. Even after doing this for years, I was like I got to make sure that the ATEM gets the freaking clean feed.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We need a producer. Hey, who wants to come produce this podcast for me, please? Zero pay. Hey, look at that. Even on the shoot I had to learn the the roadcaster, because, um, the guy um we're with, like the, it was a newer one and he didn't. It was, uh, they had a noise gate on there and once you, once you edit audio, you know what a noise gate is yeah, you instantly catch.
Vipul Bindra:What a noise gate is yeah, I'm pretty sure we have one on right now and we were yeah we definitely have one on.
Emmanuel Gallegos:I'm like but it was noticeable because I don't know. I don't know what was going on. It was noticeable, so it'd be, because it was two people talking. They were right next to each other. It was literally kind of like this setup and in the first take we just could not figure it out. And then, when the clients went back, I just was like, whatever, I'll go in there, I'll figure it out and I figured out it was you turn off the processing, yeah yeah, and we had to.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We had to turn it off individually in the mic.
Vipul Bindra:So that's what we couldn't figure out oh, you don't okay, you said you didn't want more. Basically noise gate to be on, yeah, yeah, and then once it was off because it kept cutting the the voice. Oh yeah, which I mean it's happened a couple times to you, so hopefully not yeah, which is when I brought the mic in.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Noise gate is great, as long as you know. Yeah, your, your voice is right over the line, look um, you know, this podcast is zero uh funds.
Vipul Bindra:We're not peddling anything. We're not. I'm not trying to make any money this is just conversations. So we got to go auto a lot. So the processing is on. So I'm curious to see actually audience. Uh, you know what, what feedback we get? We can always turn it off give us a review.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Um yeah, I mean, I would love to know how the audio was awful nobody wants to listen to your, to you, it's my god you kept cutting off halfway through the important information oh, my god, okay, I'm gonna tell you the.
Vipul Bindra:This is how tomorrow you're going to have 20 clients. What, what did he say this?
Emmanuel Gallegos:guy, did you hear that?
Vipul Bindra:Just do that.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah.
Vipul Bindra:If you don't do that, you're not making a million dollars? Yeah, that's on you Anyway, but no, that's kind of funny that you talk about it, because, like, look, hey, we're doing this just to provide free value and just to have good conversations. Man, this is the type of conversations I want to have, even now. Like I said, I don't, I don't I'm it doesn't matter how long I've been doing this. There's always something new to learn.
Emmanuel Gallegos:There's always something better to do and there's always something to reminisce on of like oh, I did do this. Like oh, I should be proud of this.
Vipul Bindra:Or oh yeah, this is how we exactly and it brings everything in perspective yeah, or share these simple things that you know I learned from my ideas like now never use a camera. That time could, but that happened that one time long time ago, and I've never had that experience so clearly. The system works you know, you learn from your mistakes and you never do them again. But if you're listening to a conversation like this and you already plan for those mistakes, then you'll never even have those mistakes.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So it's kind of like I don't know, and that's what the client's paying for. Yeah, the reassurance that like hey, if I hire you for a wedding you're gonna get the kiss. Yeah, if I hire you for real estate, you're gonna have a wide angle, you're gonna know how to take a photo or how to do like it. It's not that you know. The skill is that you've done it so many times.
Vipul Bindra:It's a clear Exactly, and especially once the budgets get higher, it's on you. If there's $100,000 on the line, you better hit record, and if not, then you don't belong on that set. You can't go up to them and be like hey, sorry, the card got formatted.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, I formatted the card I'm so sorry or the clean feed.
Vipul Bindra:It wasn't the clean feed, it wasn't on. Yeah, exactly.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Although I can edit the video, but you'll see a whole. You'll see some extra stuff on it, even sometimes, like once you do this, like I've seen some videos on live and it makes me mad when I know they shot it raw, with no LUT or C-Log or whatever, and they leave it, and they leave it.
Vipul Bindra:I'm just like why?
Emmanuel Gallegos:Why do you think this looks good? What's going on? Please hire a colorist. I don't know if you saw this. This was like a year or two ago. There was a video on Times Square on one of the big screens and one of the frames one of the frame, one of the clips. It wasn't the warp. Stabilization wasn't processed so you just see the you see the blue line that says warp stabilization and it's just on time square and you're just like looking at it like what? How did that happen?
Vipul Bindra:oh my god. But see, that's what I'm saying. That's what. Why would clients would pay you more? It's the reliability to show up. Like you know, I think in my last as a production company seven years I only canceled or delayed one shoot. Even that I didn't cancel. So somebody was going to come help me, called in because they were like they had COVID and that was a legit reason at that time I was like, okay, yeah, please don't show up.
Vipul Bindra:But then at the same time time we can't do the first person, and they were very important uh, you know the of some hospital, whatever. And she was really mad. I mean I, it's fair, I was like, hey, look, here's what's happening, my client, and has my, my um, my contractor, my cam up, whatever has, uh, it's covid, so I'm gonna have to delay this, but we can do this later in the day. And she was like, well, I'm not available today. Then I was like, well, then, here's my exception, I will specially come out tomorrow with different crew and we'll capture you. And she was willing to do that. So, it's fine, we worked it out. And then, the funny enough, we still.
Vipul Bindra:I called quentin, which was going to be on the podcast eventually. And then, but I called him, I was like, look, dude, you're supposed to be in the shoot later, can you come earlier? And he was nice enough to come an hour or two. So the second, because you know, again, corporate, we're doing literally sometimes 10, 20 interviews in a day. So the second location after that, I was there and he was there, and we did the whole day, um and uh, made it happen and then we just had. I had to just go back and get that one um, pick up that one shoot later. But, like I said a lot of times, you're working with these people who have such tight schedules and availability that you know canceling or whatever, even delaying, is not an option. But, like I said, only done it once and even that I'm like I wish that had not happened but, I, could not have predicted, yeah.
Emmanuel Gallegos:COVID was a hard time, for sure, yeah.
Vipul Bindra:That was just crazy.
Emmanuel Gallegos:It's just crazy.
Vipul Bindra:Plus you know it's like you can't take that liability. I'm like, once you tell me that, I mean even then I'm glad he told me that, because that would have been even worse. But I'm like, okay, well, at that point, you know, I just wish I had a little earlier notification, because then I would have been able to get people there on time. Yeah, I guess something, yeah, yeah but it is what it is you know.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Yeah, I think those mistakes are best early in your career.
Vipul Bindra:Once you make those mistakes, then you know for a fact you're not going to make it again.
Emmanuel Gallegos:At least you now know what you're not going to do.
Vipul Bindra:Yeah, exactly, and that's why they're paying you high money, because the truth is somebody else gets COVID. You're still responsible, right, and I hope that doesn't happen. But if somebody gets an accident, or your tire blows in your grip, man, or whatever, at the end of the day, regardless you are, if you're the producer I mean you're getting the big bucks then you are responsible for making sure the shoot happens, because if they're having a hundred thousand dollar loss, guess who's responsible for it?
Vipul Bindra:you are because if you're the producer, yeah they're gonna look at you.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Real funny if uh if no one shows up the set or something gets canceled, even the actor. Oh, the actor got COVID. I'm sorry, I messed up my money.
Vipul Bindra:Which is why you got to get insurance. You got to get you know, make sure you know you get iron contracts from.
Vipul Bindra:You know actual attorneys that you know, cover your butt In these cases. You have kill fees, you have, you know, rain, whatever clauses in there, I don't know, I'm not an attorney, that's not legal advice. But follow, you know, ask again the right professional. You gotta have all these things done to protect yourself. But also, again, remember be reliable. Right, that's all that is again. Make it simple, just be reliable, just know you're responsible. Um and um. Yeah, I think rest will just follow. I mean, it's pretty, pretty straightforward from there on. Anyway, I think time to kind of wrap these things up so thank you for coming man, this was an incredible conversation
Vipul Bindra:had a great time you know anything before we go? Anything you want to ask me, or you know anything you want to add to it?
Emmanuel Gallegos:we covered a lot, but yeah, thanks. Do you want to add to it? We covered a lot, um, but yeah, thanks, thanks, do you want to? Do you want to shout out your studio, or is it still?
Vipul Bindra:I don't pedal anything, guys, but why don't you shout out your Instagram?
Emmanuel Gallegos:Instagram yeah, you guys can find me, so I have three Instagram, so feel free to follow whichever one you guys want, or you can follow all of them. Company at that mediapro. We do commercials, we do corporate work. We also have my. If you want to hire me just as a freelance dp for documentaries commercials, uh, emannfilms, underscore fl. There's another email films in texas.
Emmanuel Gallegos:Apparently they took my username and then um my studio if you're ever in the orlando area, if you need a photo and video studio, feel free to swing by uh, studio 124, uh, near downtown and east colonial, and that's also the instagram too, but that's also. That's both awesome.
Vipul Bindra:Well, thank you, hey, please go follow him. I I barely post anything on instagram somebody at least who does post some things, so definitely again. Thank you for coming, man. Um, I really want to thank you. I think we've had some incredible memories on set and offset the last couple of years and hopefully we'll get to continue doing this uh, next few years. And, like I said, my only hope is you grow so much that, uh, so far it's been me hiring you. I want to eventually be where you're.
Emmanuel Gallegos:So, yeah, so so far ahead that you're hiring me, I can't wait to hire you and your grip truck too. And you can, we can put it to use.
Vipul Bindra:We can exactly, man we can.
Emmanuel Gallegos:We can show off to the clients like, hey, look at our, look at our sexy car.
Vipul Bindra:I will happily put on your shirt and I'll go happily impress your clients for you, that's.
Emmanuel Gallegos:That's exactly what I'm looking forward to doing not buying any more camera equipment, just hiring vipple as my camera, that that'd be my dream.
Vipul Bindra:I think we got to continue collaborating, so again like I said thank you for coming, man, and uh, we'll keep doing this. Yeah, all right, peace, peace.